Not So Smooth For RFID First Day

PLUS has officially turned on the RFID lanes in all stretches of the North-South Expressway spanning from Juru in Penang to Sjudai Johor. The highway operator has mentioned that come January 15, all booth locations will have at least 1 lane using infrared technology, a feature that will become the de facto system for all lanes in the future.

Both the Ministry of Works and the highway operator have been reminding road users to start using the Touch N Go RFID system as all lanes will eventually adopt the technology replacing Smart Tag and prepaid cards. Kicking off the “use RFID” campaign in the midst of a pandemic, post-flood disaster, the road users were vehemently calling for the postponement but the implementation went ahead.

With the introduction of at least one RFID lane at all booth locations along the North-South expressway, it would also mean that there was no RFID before it would now take over either a SmartTag or Touch N Go lane. And if that location had just one SmartTag lane, then that would have had to go! The situation surely cropped up as users started complaining on social media about the many teething problems the first day had been.

Some of the complaints were of the poor coordination between the toll booths, as there definitely was a lack of lanes which led to many unnecessary problems with traffic piling up on the lanes. Other complaints were on the sticker issue which was not detected by the overhead scanner, causing massive queues, one user even said the Senawang and Nilai RFID system completely malfunctioned. Some even stated that not all tolls have RFID, citing Slim River and Sungkai.

In another instance, user RahimRetro complained that the boom barrier failed to open and had tried many times until giving up and reversing out, but of course, by then a massive pile-up had already formed. Another user was perplexed why PLUS did not have personals on standby or full proof the system before announcing the opening, he grumbled on the long pile up in some of the booths that saw many vehicles reversing out.

Most of the comments have been for PLUS to sort out the issues before asking users to fully rely on RFID, they have also suggested for the concessionaire to stop selling SmartTag if they plan to phase it out.

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