A bit of good news from the House of Representatives: Congressmen Sandro Marcos, Jolo Revilla, Dean Asistio, Oca Malapitan, Eric Martinez, and Edwin Olivarez have filed House Resolution 159 to fast-track the full cashless system for our expressways, and at the same time push for the Toll Interoperability Project.
Back in 2017, the country’s toll operators Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation – the operator of NLEX, SCTEX, CAVITEX, C5 Link, CALAX, and CCLEX – and SMC Tollways Corporation – the operator of SLEX, SKYWAY, NAIAX, SKYWAY STAGE 3 and STAR – have agreed to the government’s Toll Interoperability Project which aims for RFID systems interoperability between the various expressways, which, in a nutshell, would allow one RFID tag and wallet for use on all expressways instead of the current two.
The project was sidelined due to the pandemic and has only reached Phase One.
In a social media post by Rep. Revilla, he stated that citizens are still having difficulty with the use of tollways every day, having to maintain two e-wallets, each one with its own “load”. With HR 159, they aim to check the progress and see what's taking the project so long and what can be done to speed it up.
