SMC

The new graduates — mostly coming from Polytechnic University of the Philippines’s (PUP) Railway Engineering Program which is the only specialized program of its kind in the country — have already started their training in the country while 40 cadets who topped evaluation tests were sent to South Korea to train under its national railway operator, Korail, also SMC’s partner in the MRT-7 project.

The figure doubled the number of stickers the company issued to motorists from 2015 to 2019 totaling 1.3 million.

SMC also announced that it will enforce the planned “Three-Strike Policy” for erring motorists who use ETC lanes with insufficient load credits.

SMC said it converted all but one of its 66 dedicated “onsite” or toll plaza stations into 24/7 stickering stations.

SMC reported opening a total of 42 new stations in the last two weeks, in addition to the 53 stations it had as of November, bringing the current total to 95 stations.

San Miguel Corporation (SMC) president Ramon S. Ang is asking the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to allow the toll operators to keep the cash lane open until February because of the large volume of vehicles that don’t have the RFID stickers yet.

SMC had noted a larger-than-expected spike in applications, particularly from non-regular users hoping to beat the deadline.

Although all expressways will be implementing cashless toll collections, motorists without RFID stickers will still be allowed entry to the toll plaza but will be led to an area where their vehicles will be provided with the RFID stickers.

SMC emphasized, however, that Nov. 30 will be the absolute deadline. After which, vehicles without RFID stickers will not be allowed to enter SMC-operated tollways including Skyway, SLEX, NAIAX, STAR Tollways and TPLEX.