ELECTRONIC TOLL COLLECTION SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION IN MALAYSIA

The government's strategy to promote the country's economic growth through the development of toll highways has achieved considerable success. Malaysia has seen a tremendous growth in its highway sector during the last ten years, mainly due to private sector investment in road infrastructure projects. Malaysia has one of the highest numbers of toll highway concessions in the world. Presently, they have 25 toll concession companies, with 16 of them in operation, concentrated mainly in the densely populated Klang Valley region. Toll concession companies have introduced electronic toll collection (ETC) systems on their highways and it has become an issue due to the two distinctly different systems in operation. The introduction of different incompatible ETC systems will be unacceptable to the motoring public, as it would negate the benefits to be derived from ETC systems installation. The government has initiated efforts to streamline the ETC systems by requiring the highway concessionaires to subscribe to a common ETC system to enable interoperability. This paper intends to describe the Malaysian experience in ETC systems implementation and the move towards standards development. A survey was carried out to gather feedback from the toll concession companies, which include the direction and solution for a national standard for dedicated short range communications (DSRC) in ETC.