Toll board to investigate cause of recent heavy traffic in SLEX

MANILA: The South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) and other tollways run by the San Miguel Corporation (SMC) experienced heavy traffic on Thursday. The Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) is starting a thorough investigation into the cause of the situation.

“Ginagawan po natin ng kaparaanan na sana po’y huwag nang maulit ang mga ganiyang bagay kaya’t gagawa po tayo ng masusing pag-aaral at pag-iimbestiga sa sitwasyong nangyari (We are looking for ways to avoid similar situations that is why we will do a comprehensive study and investigation into what happened),” TRB Spokesperson Julius Corpuz stated.

According to SMC, the fault on the fiber optics of their internet provider caused the system glitch in RFIDs, which resulted in heavy traffic. Corpuz stated that the TRB has also requested the network provider of the tollways to explain in a letter the scenario that caused the severe traffic congestion as the agency needs to know what the other causes are, how they responded, and whether they took prompt action.

He added that in addition to the investigation, the TRB will conduct regular audits on the tollways under their coverage to guarantee the efficiency of the equipment and systems utilized by tollway operators.

Corpus emphasized that if there are inevitable incidents, whether they are man-made or not, there should be intervention measures that they can apply right away to prevent inconveniencing the motorists.

On Thursday, the RFID system malfunctioned at SLEX from 7 a.m. until 9 a.m., causing traffic congestion on major thoroughfares going to Metro Manila.

In response, Corpuz noted that although SMC made the decision to leave the toll barriers up to help relieve the traffic congestion, the slow traffic condition continued for several more hours due to the high volume of vehicles.

He said that the affected tollways' communications network has already been restored, and traffic conditions have returned to normal.

He said that the SMC had expressed apology to drivers for the inconvenience.

Photo from South Luzon Tollway Corporation

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