Residents of Kampung Baru Palawan near Langkap have put forward a solution to alleviate traffic congestion on the North-South Expressway, especially during festive periods. They suggest utilising the “jalan tikus” (dirt road) in Ladang Bikam as an alternative route for highway users, as reported by The Star.
Lee Kim Chin, 65, who assisted motorists in navigating the Ladang Bikam dirt road during the fourth day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri, highlighted its potential to shorten the journey to Kuala Lumpur. He explained that travellers only need to cover a distance of about three kilometres before reaching the main road in Kuala Bikam, heading south.
PLUS Malaysia Berhad (PLUS) is expanding its highway operations to handle the 1.9 million vehicles per day on the peak days on the North-South Expressway (NSE) between 11 August and 12 August in order to make it more comfortable for Malaysians travelling back to their hometowns or polling places in conjunction with the State Elections (PRN) .
PLUS is expanding its services at toll plazas and rest and service areas (R&R) to handle the increase in traffic on its highway.
PLUS will also temporarily halt all lane-closing highway maintenance, improvements, and construction projects from August 11 through August 13, with the exception of urgent repair work and accident clearance.
Additionally, PLUS makes sure that all public amenities, including lavatories, suraus, gas stations at R&Rs and lay-bys, are open twenty-four hours a day. Additionally, drivers are encouraged to stop every two hours for a break to avoid micro-sleeping whilst driving.
During the major festive seasons, traffic volumes on the highways increase tremendously as millions of vehicles travel around the country. On other days of the year, traffic flow is generally smooth (unless there’s an accident or roadworks) and motorists can travel safely and speedily between destinations.
This weekend, PLUS Malaysia anticipates another wave of high traffic volume on its highways from Saturday till Monday (April 29 to May 1) as it is the end of the school holidays and there is also a national holiday (Labour Day) on Monday.
In view of this greater volume of traffic, the SmartLane concept will be activated along certain sections of the North-South Expressway. When activated, vehicles are permitted to use the Emergency Lane for specified periods so that there is additional lane capacity to ease the congestion.
Good news for those who use Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags to pay toll. Additional lanes lanes have now been created and are open at various toll plazas along the North-South Expressway (NSE). The work carried out by PLUS, the concessionaire, was completed earlier than planned (mid-April).
In total, there 12 additional RFID lanes which are at the Penang Bridge, Setia Alam, Subang, Jalan Duta, Putra Mahkota, Kajang, Kubang Semang, Sungai Besi, Shah Alam, Sungai Buloh, and Rawang Selatan toll plazas.
Motorists travelling on the North-South Expressway are advised that Phase Two of Pavement Rehabilitation Work will be underway from next week until the middle of April 2023. The area affected is within the Meru Tunnel (the southbound tunnel next to the northbound Menora Tunnel) between KM260.30 and KM262.05 on the Kuala Kangsar – Ipoh section.
An advisory by PLUS states that there will be temporary closure of the left lane at the tunnel from March 20 (Monday) to April 14 (Friday), 2023. The closure of the lane will be done in stages between 9:00 pm and 12:00 noon daily.
Anyone wanting to drive from Singapore to Bangkok can do so on nice highways through Malaysia and Thailand. Like other highways around the world, there are petrol stations all along the way so refuelling is not a concern.
The situation is a bit different for those with electric vehicles (EVs) as they need electricity rather than liquid fuel. It is only in the past couple of years that EV sales have started and the need for recharging stations has taken on an urgency. Unless there is a comprehensive network of stations around the country, EV owners will be unable to travel far and this will discourage buying such vehicles.
The private sector has been giving its support to the government’s call to establish this network and Shell Malaysia has collaborated with Porsche Asia Pacific to set up stations not just in Malaysia but also in Singapore and Thailand. The network is along the North-South Expressway in Malaysia and then highways in Thailand, the longest cross-country high-performance charging (HPC) infrastructure EV network in Southeast Asia.
Travelers using the North-South Expressway tomorrow (Wednesday, November 30) are advised that there will be temporary closure along the Ipoh Utara – Ipoh Selatan stretch between the two toll plazas. The closure will affect those who are travelling south on the highway from Kuala Kangsar, Penang and the north.
The closure, which is to facilitate an emergency response exercise, will take place from 10 am to 2:30 pm. During that period, highway users from the north/Kuala Kangsar will be diverted to the Ipoh Utara toll plaza to use the FT240 Jelapang – Ampang slip-road. Those who wish to continue south on their journey are advised to rejoin the North-South Expressway via the Ipoh Selatan toll plaza.
If you are a frequent traveller along the North-South Expressway and pass through the Juru area, be advised that there will be a traffic diversion at the Juru Interchange (northbound) for all vehicles from this Thursday at 12 am October 6, until 11 pm November 13, 2022 (Sunday).
For the 2 million motorists expected to be travelling along highways during this Hari Raya period, toll charges would have been expected to be part of the travelling cost. However, on four days during the festive period, they won’t have to pay any toll, or pay a discounted rate.
Announced by the Prime Minister this afternoon, the special concession will be on April 30/May 1 and May 7/May 8. It will be applicable to all classes of vehicles. The total amount of toll that will not be collected is estimated at RM77.11 million.
The full exemption of toll will be on the PLUS and LTP (East Coast) highways, Penang Bridge, and Second Link while other highways will have 30% or 50% discount.
Opened in 2011, the LATAR highway from Templer’s Park in Selangor provides a quick connection to Kuala Selangor and the West Coast Expressway. It is also accessible from Shah Alam using the GCE.
PLUS also says that facilities (including food and beverage outlets) and services at all its R&Rs and lay-bys along the highways will be operating 24-hours a day throughout the Hari Raya. In anticipation of more visitors to these areas, there will be additional mobile toilets and water tankers.
However, if over-crowding disrupts traffic flow along the highway, some of the rest areas will be temporarily closed to manage the congestion and will be immediately re-opened once the crowd has dispersed and traffic flow is back to normal. It should also be remembered that social distancing is still required for public safety. Let’s prevent the case numbers from going back up again.
Finally, whether you are using a Touch’nGo card, SmartTAG or RFID, be sure that your tollcard or e-wallet has enough balance to cover the toll charges if you are travelling on other days. There will be a lot of vehicles behind you so don’t cause others inconvenience by not being able to pass through because you didn’t have enough balance. The PLUS website has a toll charge calculator which can let you know exactly the amount you need to pay between two toll plazas.
PLUS Malaysia has taken note of the Prime Minister’s directive to ensure that highway users have more than just the RFID mode of payment to use to electronically pay toll charges. The RFID option has co-existed with the SmartTAG and Touch ‘n Go payment options in most open toll highway networks since 2018 and last Saturday, PLUS introduced it along the North-South Expressway so that motorists who travelled from Juru in the north to Skudai in the south could also use the payment mode.
However, the move caused severe congestion at many toll plazas due to confusion as well as the reduction of SmartTAG lanes which had either been converted to the manual Touch ‘n Go system or to RFID lanes. This appears to not have been the best approach as there are 5 million SmartTAG users but at this time, only 1.5 million vehicles have RFID tags. So it actually makes sense that proportionally, there should be more lanes for the system that has more users.
Apologising to the thousands of motorists for the inconvenience caused as a result of the congestion, PLUS has announced this evening that it will reinstate SmartTAG lanes to address the matter and manage traffic at the toll plazas.
“PLUS is committed to reinstate 16 toll plazas with 19 Touch ‘n Go lanes into SmartTAG lanes by January 25, 2022, in antipication of the Chinese New Year travel exodus. Subsequently, post-CNY, on February 19, an additional 18 toll plazas will convert 24 lanes to SmartTAG lanes”, the statement said.
While the PM’s directive was reported today, PLUS officials had earlier been in discussion with the Senior Minister of Works, Dato’ Sri Hj Fadillah Haji Yusof and the Director-General of the Malaysia Highway Authority (LLM), Dato Ir Mohd Shuhaimi Hassan, in response to concerns and unhappiness of the public’s during the initial RFID implementation and the removal of the SmartTag lanes at certain toll plazas.
PLUS has proactively identified areas of improvement and has assured the government that the highway technological enhancement will lead to a better and improved customer experience. The RFID project is in line with the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) blueprint by the Ministry of Works towards a congestion-free Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) highway eco-system.
Faster-operating double-arm barriers will be installed so that the opening time is quicker and the vehicle can continue forward smoothly.
Acknowledging the inconvenience caused to highway users, PLUS says it is fully committed to improving its overall highway customer experience. Teams have been formed to work around the clock on the ground to optimize system performance and sharpen detection at all toll plazas. Quicker ‘double arm’ lane barriers will also be deployed at plazas with high traffic to ensure traffic flow is faster. A double-arm barrier has two sections, each about half the length of the long single barrier and should open up faster. Additionally, visual RFID detection zones will be painted on the lanes to ensure motorists are able to position their vehicle to ensure optimum detection.
PLUS has also assigned customer service assistants (CSAs) at all 158 RFID lanes at 74 toll plazas to assist customers who are stuck at the lanes, These personnel will have portable detection devices to determine if there is a malfunction of the RFID tags. Motorists whose RFID tag is found to be undetectable will be given a coupon for a full diagnosis at the nearest Touch ‘n Go fitment centre. If the RFID tag still has detection issues after the test, Touch ‘n Go will replace the RFID tag for free.
For motorists’ convenience, there are 24 RFID fitment centres on PLUS highways and 35 at locations outside PLUS highways. PLUS will continue to work with Touch ‘n Go to increase the number of fitment centres to ensure proper tag application by professional personnel.
