Vehicles pass through the Balintawak tollway along the North Luzon Expressway in Caloocan City on October 22, 2020. The Department of Transportation required tollways to go fully cashless to curb the spread of COVID-19. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/File
MANILA - NLEX Corp. said Tuesday it seeks to cooperate with the Valenzuela City local government to help resolve the tollway traffic in the area.
"We are reviewing the situation and are doing everything necessary to address the issues," NLEX Corp. President J. Luigi Bautista said in a statement.
NLEX Corp., under Manny Pangilinan's Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., is in hot water as the local government of Valenzuela City suspended their business permit on Monday due to the heavy traffic buildup since the implementation of the cashless RFID toll collection on Dec. 1.
NLEX earlier admitted there were "technical problems" in their system contributing to the traffic buildup.
Bautista attributed this to the system's "adjustments" on the RFID implementation since Dec. 1.
Other factors to the heavy traffic include the concurrent lifting of number coding and truck ban which increases the volume of vehicles on roads, as well as the trade and shopping rush approaching the Christmas season.
Bautista said NLEX Corp is continuously “working to eliminate the inconvenience" to customers amid the cashless toll payments rule.
Valenzuela Mayor Rex Gatchalian on Monday did not grant NLEX Corp's plea for a grace period to fix its RFID payment system, saying the company had all the time it needed to resolve the issues.
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