The operational trial of the Japanese electronic toll collection (ETC) system started from 24th of April 2000 at the major toll plazas in the metropolitan areas and mainly in Chiba region with approximately 30,000 monitor vehicles participating. The system in this area is now open to the public drivers from 30th of March 2001. ETC will expand its service to the three major urban areas on 23rd of July this year, and then to 600 toll plazas nationwide in autumn. Furthermore, by the end of fiscal year 2002, ETC system will be deployed to 900 toll plazas, which account for 70 per cent of the toll plazas in Japan. The construction of the ETC system is expected to bring many effects such as improving the convenience and amenity of the customers, alleviating traffic congestion in the urban area and cutting administrative costs such as the toll collection expenses. Besides, it is expected to promote the development of services using interactive vehicle to roadside information system and the wide use of the IC cards and electronic payment. Since ETC is expected to bring a revolution to the Japanese toll road system, rapid promotion of the system penetration is regarded as an extremely urgent and important issue. However, proceeding with the promotion of the ETC diffusion, some issues were concerned such as resistance to the high price onboard equipment and the existence of the current high rate discount.
Samenvatting