Last year, the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) mandated expressway operators in the country to conduct a dry run of cashless payments on toll plazas and exits. This made more motorists adopt the use of Easytrip RFID on expressways managed by Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation, and Autosweep RFID for tollways managed by SMC.

But now that we’re in the year 2024, TRB wants to expand that program even further. By January 10, TRB will be initiating a dry run for RFID interoperability. The objective is to make the two RFIDs (Easytrip and Autosweep) readable across all expressways for ease of passage.

TRB executive director Alvin Carullo said that all toll exits will now be testing their systems for cashless payments, as they aim to remove all cash lanes by June. On the other hand, TRB targets to implement the RFID interoperability program by July 2024.

However, the TRB has not mentioned if users still need to load up on two separate wallets in traversing through the SMC and MPTC-operated expressways under this initiative. While cashless transactions have seen widespread use in the post-pandemic era, having two separate wallets somehow defeats the purpose of having one RFID.

Not to mention, toll plazas in the country have varying speeds and accuracies in reading RFID tags, which greatly affect queueing time across toll plazas.