March May See Penalties Return for Tag-Less Motorists in Tollways
There is a plan to impose the fines on motorists entering tollways without
radio frequency identification or RFID tags by March of this year.
According to a Businessworld report, TRB Executive Director Alvin A.
Carullo said that the new tollway regulations originally slated for
enforcement last year were now tentatively scheduled to take effect on March
1.
However, Carullo clarified that the initial focus would be on penalizing
motorists who do not possess RFID tags, while fines for those with
insufficient wallet balances, also part of the deferred guidelines, would
not be immediately enforced.
Carullo was referring to tollway guidelines under Joint Memorandum Circular
No. 2024-001 which were supposed to be enforced in October of last year but
was deferred by the Department of Transportation following widespread
criticism from motorists and other advocacy groups.
In deferring the implementation of the JMC 2024-001, Transportation
Secretary Jaime Bautista said various stakeholders would be consulted on
possibly amending the order while tollway operators were given time to
finetune their operations leading to a fully cashless tollway payment
system.
To be sure, motorists who regularly use expressways are not opposed to a
purely cashless toll payment system-and may even favor it. They only ask
for such a system to be efficient, fair, and not be a blackhole for missing
loads.