Failure to accurately identify car license plate numbers has caused a shortfall in freeway toll revenues of NT$176 million (US$5.3 million) after the government implemented a distance-based electronic toll collection (ETC) policy last year, a National Freeway Bureau report said yesterday.
The report was provided to a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which was scheduled to review next year’s budget for the Freeway Construction Fund.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) said the bureau had already estimated uncollected freeway toll fees had totaled NT$27.44 million between January 2006 and December 2013 prior to the introduction of the distance-based toll policy last year.
However, uncollected toll fees grew to NT$176 million between January last year and last month.
Yang said uncollected toll fees total about NT$203 million and that the bureau needs to submit records to the courts and request that they collect default toll fees.
The bureau said it has had problems collecting default toll fees since the distance-based ETC policy took effect, because the system cannot accurately identify license plate numbers.
It said that some of drivers deliberately cover their license plates with paper so that the ETC system cannot detect the numbers, while others remove their plates before driving on freeways.
In some cases, license plates were deformed or placed incorrectly, the bureau added.
Bureau Director-General Chen Yen-po (陳彥伯) said the National Highway Police Bureau has increased its efforts to crack down drivers who cover up their license plates, reducing violations from 200,000 per month to 30,000 per month.
He said the bureau would continue to collect default fines.
Chen said that the National Freeway Bureau has increased lighting on freeway interchanges to enable the system to accurately detect license plates, adding that it is also trying other measures to increase accuracy.
The National Freeway Bureau also said that 187 former freeway toll-collectors have yet to find jobs, and need its’ assistance.
Statistics show that there are 947 former freeway toll-collectors. Among them, 760 accepted severance packages, 549 accepted compensation and 211 accepted new jobs.
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