PLUS happy more drivers’ ensuring toll cards have enough balance before hitting road

PETALING JAYA: More motorists are making sure they have sufficient balance in their Touch ’n Go cards after PLUS Malaysia Bhd stopped offering card reload facilities at all toll plaza exit lanes since Tuesday.

PLUS managing director Datuk Azman Ismail said the move had led to positive changes in driving behaviour among motorists and eased congestion at toll plazas.

“The reason for ending the reload facilities is to ease congestion as motorists took between one and three minutes to reload their cards, ” he told reporters at a press conference in Persada PLUS today.

He pointed out that the number of motorists entering PLUS highways with an insufficient balance on their cards had dropped.

“For example, PLUS central region toll plazas recorded 850,000 transactions on Nov 5 with 5% having insufficient card balance which was reduced to 1.3% in just two days.

“The northern region also saw the number of insufficient card balance reduced to 5% from 9% out of 238,000 transactions while the southern region saw a reduction to 4% from 8% out of 199,000 transactions, ” he added.

He also said the Jalan Duta toll plaza used to see about 3,000 transactions with insufficient card balance but this had been reduced to 920 transactions.

He acknowledged it was impossible to achieve zero incidents.

“That is why there will still be PLUS personnel on hand to help customers, ” he said, adding that there are more than 150 Touch ’n Go reload facilities along PLUS highways, which provide free top-up services.

Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Azmin Ali has weighed in on the matter, saying that PLUS

On the 7km traffic jam at the Skudai toll plaza in Johor on Thursday, Azman said it was an isolated incident caused by motorists themselves.

“There was a bit of a chaos as some of them came out of their vehicles to inquire about reloading their cards.

“For safety reasons, they should have remained in their vehicles as our staff would have provided them with help, ” he said.

Meanwhile, Azman said that PLUS will be rolling out its latest Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) toll collection system at nine of its open system tolls in January.

The RFID will be tested out at one toll booth at toll plazas in Kempas (NSE), Perling (Linke-dua), Lima Kedai (Linkedua), Tanjung Kupang (Linkedua), Mambau (SPDH), Jambatan Pulau Pinang, Lunas (BKE), Kubang Semang (BKE) and Jitra (NSE).