Taiwan Highway Electronic Toll Collection System (ETC) is used to electronically collect tolls on national freeways in Taiwan. All tolls are collected electronically by overhead gantries, not at traditional toll booths. Taiwan is the first country to switch from manual tolling to all electronic, multi-lane free flow tolling on all of its freeways.
To simulate the previous model where a vehicle would not pass toll collection over short distance travel, each vehicle receives 20 kilometers per diem of free travel, and are billed NT$ 1.2 per kilometer thereafter. Buses and Trailers are subject to heavy vehicle surcharges. The highway administration may alter fares (e.g. remove the per diem) during peak travel seasons to facilitate distribution of congestion to midnight hours.
The toll gates divide the highway into segments; each having a price value determined by distance to the next gate (interchange). At midnight, a daily gate count calculated, and the total charge is deducted in 48 hours. Each vehicle receives further discount after the first 200 kilometers, and eTag subscribers with prepaid accounts get a further 10% reduction. Non-subscribers are billed by license plate recognition and mail statements, since a subscription to ETC is not mandated by law.
Taiwan is the first country to transfer from flat-rate toll stations to distance-based pay-as-you-go tolling system on all of its freeways. It has the longest ETC freeway mileage in the world.
History
The first toll station was built in Taishan on Freeway 1 with manual toll collecting in July 1974. Manual toll collection lasted until the end of 2003, at which point there were 23 toll stations on eight national freeways, with an average distance of 35 kilometres (22 mi) between toll stations. Each toll station had 5–11 toll gates in each direction, and a flat rate was charged between toll stations.
Exact change toll gates were introduced in February 1983, and toll gates that accepted toll tickets were introduced in December 1996. In February 2005, ETC gates at toll stations were launched.
In December 2013, the old toll stations were replaced by the distance-based pay-as-you-go all electronic toll collection on all of Taiwan’s major freeways.