Saturday, August 15, 2009

The WRONG Approach to CUTTING QUEUES at Tolled Highways

To share some history on my writing, tolls were one of my earlier rants when I wrote to newspapers in the 70s.
Today's article in the Star caught my attention as the toll operators are told to Cut queuing time from "40 minutes to to less than 15 minutes."

That is a good idea to reduce the burden of motorists but I think the entire approach is wrong as I think the government should take the load and move all the toll companies towards a seamless toll collection system.
This is nothing new and has proved effective for more than 10 years as the Singapore model that has been in operation even before 1998.
You can read a brief of their experience here.
The Malaysian Highway Authority can be tasked to complete this type of project within 3 years and even earn some income for the government by charging say 5 to 10%of revenue collected for installing the gantries and accounting for all the monies to the toll companies.

It will probably also result in more accurate accounting of revenues for the companies. PLUS could also be the lead manager, subject to proper controls.
This is something that can be achieved without much hassle and no further need to develop systems that really do not benefit the motorists.

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