Bulacan execs also hit NLEx ‘poor’ cashless toll system

CONGESTION Vehicles queue at the North Luzon Expressway’s Balintawak Toll Plaza on Tuesday during the first day of the implementation of full cashless transactions starting to protect the public from COVID-19 transmission. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

CITY OF MALOLOS — Officials in Bulacan province on Wednesday rallied behind Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian in his call to hold North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) Corp. responsible for the “badly managed” shift to an electronic toll collection system that had caused daily congestion on the expressways.

At least 20 NLEx toll gates are situated at interchanges in the province.

Unprepared

Guiguinto Mayor Ambrosio Cruz Jr., president of the Mayors’ League of Bulacan, said the suspension of NLEx’s business permit in Valenzuela City should serve as a “wake-up” call to the toll operator. The traffic mess on the expressways was caused by malfunctioning Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) stickers, which Cruz described as a “poor technology system.”

Gatchalian on Monday suspended the business permit of NLEx Corp. for its failure to solve the heavy traffic that its cashless toll collection caused in Valenzuela.

The mayor, Cruz said, “did the right thing because the technical problems in the cashless transaction system caused the congestion. Motorists paid in advance, but then they were still caught in the traffic.” He said NLEx Corp. had been collecting a “huge sum of money” from toll gate users “without providing the right service.”

Bulacan Gov. Daniel Fernando said he had asked for a meeting with the toll operator before the Nov. 2 deadline of the RFID installation, but his request was ignored.

“We wanted to ensure that NLEx Corp. was ready for this system. It turned out that they were not. So why did they have to implement it even if they were not fully prepared?” Fernando said.

Fixing flaws

NLEX Corp. president J. Luigi Bautista said the company was fixing the flaws in the RFID system. He admitted that the mandated cashless toll implementation had “experienced birth pains that unfortunately resulted in technical problems in some instances.”

“These glitches that are occurring at the toll booths are simply a result of some adjustments that should be expected because the RFID implementation took effect only eight days ago,” Bautista said. —CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE INQ