PHOTO: Philhyundai.com
MANILA, Philippines — San Miguel Corporation (SMC) Infrastructure, the operator of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx), has promised to refund the tolls of motorists who were affected by the disruption of its Autosweep electronic toll collection system on Thursday.
In a statement on Thursday, SMC Infrastructure apologized to motorists caught in heavy traffic along the SLEx, the Skyway, NAIAx, and STAR Tollway.
Photos posted online by drivers showed long lines of cars moving slowly along the SLEx. This was because the radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging network that SMC’s Autosweep uses to collect tolls had a problem.
“SMC Infrastructure sincerely apologizes to all motorists affected by traffic jams along portions of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Skyway, NAIAx and STAR Tollway this morning, resulting from a momentary network outage in our electronic toll collection system,” SMC said.
SMC Infrastructure explained that barriers at the affected toll plazas were raised during the glitch and tolls were waived. SMC Infrastructure added that motorists who got deductions in their Autosweep balances when the RFID system was down will get refunds.
“We also opened affected toll plazas and waived toll fees. All in all, this covers around 84,000 vehicles that passed through the expressways from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, November 17,” the company said.
“This includes motorists whose ETC accounts were deducted upon entry; they will receive electronic refunds in their Autosweep accounts. While the system was restored around 9 a.m., we decided to keep barriers at toll plazas up, to enable all affected motorists to pass through for free,” it added.
The tollway operator also confirmed that the problem with the Autosweep RFID system was traced to a damaged fiber optic cable. SMC Infrastructure said the damage may have been caused by a vehicular accident.
“Our IT teams traced the source of the downtime to a cut in our fiber optic network. We are still determining the root cause of the damage, but there are indications that a major vehicular accident may have contributed to the situation,” SMC Infrastructure said.
“To help ease traffic congestion, we deployed additional manpower to provide support for motorists,” it assured the public. “Again, we apologize for the inconvenience, and ask for our motorists’ understanding, as we work to ensure that we deliver the same high level of efficiency and reliability they have come to expect from us, at all times.”
READ: Autosweep RFID system failure triggers heavy traffic on SLEx