RFID malfunction

I am writing to Inquirer as a last resort because I have lodged my complaint to both the management of the Skyway as well as to the office of Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade. It has been more than two weeks and I have not received even the courtesy of an acknowledgment.

The RFID (radio-frequency identification) in the South Luzon Expressway has been causing traffic at the entry for some time now. More and more vehicles have to stop because of the failure of the sensors to read the RFID tapes on the vehicles. A few vehicles are able to pass through but these are the exceptions.

It is quite frustrating to pay the full rates of the Skyway especially when the cash lane is sometimes faster than the RFID lane!

In other countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, their tollways are so efficient. Vehicles run through the RFID-type lanes without any need to stop.

What’s wrong with the local RFID? What can be done to fix it and raise it to global standards?

This is not just my personal complaint. It is shared by many others in Ayala Alabang where I conducted an informal e-mail survey.

In fact, I forwarded the litany of complaints to both the Skyway management and Secretary Tugade’s office.

Based on the survey, some major technical and operational flaws include:

1. Unreliability. The airport RFID can read consistently while other exits and entrances sometimes can read but most of the time, fail to read.

2. Nonavailability of stickers. Many have reported that stickers are not available to replace those stickers that are malfunctioning.

3. Lack of standardization of sticker location. Skyway personnel blame the malfunction on wrong location of the stickers. However, only the Skyway personnel are authorized to place the stickers.

4. Inability to show the running balance for each vehicle or user.

All it will take is for Skyway’s management team to go to the various toll booths to observe. They will discover that their people manning the toll booths are the ones manually taking the RFID tickets to activate the electronic guard rail instead.

DIONISIO R. GIL JR.,

Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa City