E-toll system unveiled

By Dong Zhen | January 1, 2009, Thursday |

Print Edition

AN electronic system has been installed at 30 percent of Shanghai's toll booths that allows drivers to pay tolls without stopping their cars. Cars equipped with an electronic toll collection (ETC) tag can cruise through toll stations at 20 kilometers per hour. A device in the toll booth will read their tag and deduct the toll from a prepaid amount.

Transport authorities say when 30 to 40 percent of toll-road users are set up with tags, the new system will improve traffic flow and ease congestion. The system has already proved successful in easing traffic in Beijing and Guangdong Province, Shanghai highway administration officials said.

The system was used for the first time yesterday by a bus driver on the express toll road to neighboring Jiangsu Province.

"It's good in many ways," said Zhang Jianqing, a long-distance bus driver with Shanghai New Century Transport Co. "We don't need to pull to a stop at the booth and wind down the window to pay the fare anymore."

Zhang was the first driver to pass through one of the two ETC lanes as the system came into service at 10am yesterday at the Fenhu Toll Station.

The electronic tag, including a prepaid card, had been fixed to the middle of the inside of the bus's windshield.

On cars and other vehicles the tag will be fixed at the top of the windshield.

Vehicles carrying the tags will be automatically recognized by a sensor and allowed to pass.

The transport authority aims to have 300,000 city vehicles enrolled in this system over the next four years.

Shanghai is home to 1.3 million vehicles and the number grows 10 percent each year. A tag and a card retail for 430 yuan (US$63).

Other provinces, including Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi, are aiming to join the e-toll program over the next few years, officials said.

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E-toll system unveiled

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