NLEX - Tollways Management Corporation

On 11 February 2009, transportation engineers and graduate students of UP Diliman led by Doc Regidor together with Doc Okamoto (Japanese visiting professor in UP) visited the Tollways Management Corporation (TMC) Balintawak Control Center. This field trip aims to obtain more knowledge on the tollways , traffic and control management as well as appreciation of Intelligent Transport System that is used by TMC.

Photo taken in the Traffic Control Room

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The North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) is an 84-km stretch of intelligent and modern toll facilities, expanded and well paved roads that leads towards the northern provinces in Luzon such as Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Baguio to as far as Cagayan. The expressway is being operated by Tollways Management Corporation (TMC) since Feb 10, 2005. The NLEX has been expanded from 295 lane-kms to 433 lane-kms. Apart from using fiber optics as the backbone of the new NLEX Tollways Systems, it is also protected with Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS).

The new NLEX uses modern operational tools that conform eith international design standards for expressways. These tools include:

• Close Circuit Television (CCTV) system installed in toll plazas and in strategic locations along the expressway for security and traffic monitoring purposes. All cameras can be viewed and controlled in the Traffic Control Room (TCR).
• Counting Stations (CS) These equipment send traffic data to the control room every 6 minutes.
• Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) provide data on the aggregate weight of vehicles that transverse the tollway
• Traffic Control Room monitors data on a wall map, displays traffic surveillance video and enables traffic operators to manage traffic events.
• Variable Message Signs (VMS) provide motorists with useful and updated traffic information about the traffic situation along the expressway.
  

There are several toll plazas that were improved, expanded and constructed to meet the traffic needs. The following lists the number of booths of exit toll plazas:

Balintawak 17 toll booths
Bocaue 23 toll booths
Tabang 11 toll booths
Dau 12 toll booths

Toll Fees are as follows:
Open System Close System
Class 1 P36.00 P2.12 / km
Class 2 P91.00 P5.35 / km
Class 3 P109.00 P6.41 / km

The noted average vehicles per day as of December 2008 is
138,000 entries
173,000 transactions

The vehicle classification is as follows:
Class 1 - 75%
Class 2 - 17%
Class 3 - 8%


sources:
1. presentation notes
2. NLEX Motorist's Handbook by TMC
you may also read more at http://65.163.15.183/about.asp.