Electronic system of bridges' toll collection gets lukewarm response

The electronic toll-collection (ETC) system of bridges has so far received lukewarm response from the users since its introduction in 2019.

The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has installed the ETC on a separate lane on 10 out of 12 toll bridges in the country for facilitating the vehicles to cross through the bridges uninterrupted after self-payment of the toll automatically.

The system is expected to stop pilferage due to its cashless transaction system through the banking channel.

But collection from the system falls far below the expected level as compared to the total vehicles used on the bridges, officials at the RHD said.

For example, an official said, an average of 50,000 vehicles cross the Meghna-Gumti Bridge daily, but only an average of 4,000 vehicles used the ETC lane.

He said the Road Transport and Highways Division (RTHD) requested the Finance Division to provide a 15 per cent discount on the tolls for the ones who will use the ETC lanes.

Officials alleged that non-cooperation by vested quarters would be one of the reasons for not getting enough response. It is often found that the ETC lane remained blocked for a certain period of time on the excuse of an inactive server of the electronic system, they said.

The ETC system requires registering an app with information such as a blue book and national identification (NID) card and then payment can be done automatically with the Nexus payment system.

An official at the RTHD, however, thought that the response cannot be measured with data recorded during the last two years of the coronavirus pandemic.

He thought that the card users could be encouraged with various offers.

According to data, the Meghna-Gumti Bridge had an average of 5010 ETC-using vehicles in 2019, 4323 vehicles in 2020 and 3133 vehicles in 2021.

The declining trend was also registered in cases of other toll bridges too, barring Shah Amanat toll plaza that received 29,982 ETC-using vehicles in 2020 and 38,756 vehicles in 2021.

The Payra bridge ETC received only seven vehicles since its inauguration in September last year while Khan Jahan Ali bridge ETC so far received 245 users and Atrai bridge ETC 74 users.

The data, however, showed that the number of users in Bhairab and Shahid Mayezuddin bridges increased significantly from September last year.

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