SMC tollways adopt a new pay-as-you-exit payment scheme

Traffic’s back, and the holiday season is not making it easy to get around quickly. To deal with this influx of vehicles over the Christmas season San Miguel Corporation (SMC) and its infrastructure arm have thought ahead and have rolled out its new “Seamless Southern Tollways” program which basically eliminates the need for northbound and southbound motorists to do multiple tolls stops within the expressways.

Motorists who are southbound will be the first to try out this new scheme, while motorists traveling to the north will still retain the same setup, however, this is expected to change by December 15, 2022, as northbound traffic will also be shifted to the new Seamless Southern Tollways program. Following this new scheme, the NAIA expressway is expected to follow it within the first quarter of 2023. 

The scheme aims to improve traffic flow by just reducing the stops that motorists have to do for toll payments down to just two. This means that the RFID system will base your toll on where you enter and from where you will exit reducing traffic congestion.

For motorists worried about being overcharged at the exit, SMC has stated that fees that used to be collected at the eliminated stops will be added to the total fees to be collected at the exit point. 

In order for this new payment system to go smoothly, SMC President Ramon Ang is asking for the cooperation of motorists to help minimize the traffic build-up by making sure that their Autosweep accounts have sufficient balance and to use cash lanes if they aren’t sure about their account balance.