All NSE toll plazas go cashless

The right move: Noor Azmi (second from left) and other officials topping up the Touch ‘n Go card at a mobile sales van at Gunung Semanggol R&R area.

BUKIT GANTANG: All 94 PLUS-operated toll plazas along the North-South Expressway will go cashless starting April 26.

PLUS managing director Datuk Azman Ismail said payment would be made using PLUSMiles card, Touch ‘n Go and SmartTAG.

“We will start the implementation at noon on April 26.

“They include toll plazas on the New Klang Valley Expressway (NKVE) and the North-South Expressway Central Link (ELITE),” he said during a roadshow at the Gunung Semanggol rest and service area yesterday.

“It is to lessen traffic congestion, cut down on transaction time and in line with the Government’s call to move towards a cashless society,” he added.

He said as of Jan 31, at least 88% of the transactions on the highway were cashless.

“We hope to achieve 100%,” he added.

Azman said they would be running a roadshow starting this month to create awareness.

“The roadshow starts today. The next one will be in Seremban on March 3. We will also be installing more signboards and create more cashless lanes,” he said.

He also said they would have at least one top-up lane to reload the Touch ‘n Go and PLUSMiles cards at each plaza that would run 24 hours daily following the implementation.

“We will have at least three people to man the booth daily.

“This is to ensure there’ll be no disruption to our services,” he said, adding that the Touch ‘n Go and PLUSMiles cards were sold at PLUS Customer Service centres.

To a question on whether jobs would be slashed, Azman said most of the staff manning tollbooths would be retrained and redeployed to other departments.

“We still need people at the top-up lane,” he said, adding there were about 1,000 staff manning the tollbooths.

Malaysia Highway Authority chairman Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali said a study conducted showed that it takes an average 15 seconds to pay cash at the toll booth.

“It takes an average nine seconds with the Touch ‘n Go and three seconds with SmartTAG.

“The SmartTAG and Touch ‘n Go lanes can cater up to 1,000 and 600 toll transactions per hour respectively, compared to 180 transactions via the cash payment lane,” he said.