MANILA — The Metro Manila Skyway, the elevated highway in southern Metro Manila, is set to open its new runway toll plaza on January 26, 2018 to facilitate toll collection and manage higher traffic volume.
The newly completed facility consists of three lanes dedicated to the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system and four cash lanes with up to five tellers per lane dedicated to cash payments.
It is located in the northbound section of the elevated Skyway, near the on-ramp of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
“This new toll plaza is an enhancement to the Skyway that we initiated in order to facilitate more efficient toll collection. With dedicated ‘ETC’ lanes and ‘Cash’ lanes that can accommodate more tellers per lane, we’re hoping to improve traffic throughput at the toll plazas,” Ramon S. Ang, president of San Miguel Corporation, parent unit of Skyway operator Skyway O & M Corporation, said in a statement Monday.
Once the new Runway Toll Plaza will be operational, the toll collection in the elevated Skyway will be modified as follows:
All vehicles with Electronic Toll Collection RFID stickers coming from Alabang, Dr. A. Santos (Sucat), and Dona Soledad (Bicutan) will continue to use the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) lanes at entry points and exit at the dedicated “ETC” lanes at the new toll plaza.
Vehicles using cash payment coming from Alabang and the South Luzon Expressway will merely pass through the Alabang elevated toll plazas—their payments will be processed at the Runway Toll Plaza’s new “Cash” lanes.
Vehicles from Sucat and Bicutan using cash payment will continue to pay “upon entry” to mitigate excessive build-up at the new “Cash” lanes at the Runway Plaza.
When exiting at the “Cash” lanes at the new toll plaza, motorists from Sucat and Bicutan only need to hand over the QR-coded stub attached to their receipts, to the teller.
This is similar to the system used when motorists give their payments to ambulant tellers at various toll plazas. Skyway expects that the modifications will help ensure faster processing of toll collections.