Does ETC Need to Be Installed?

[DeJude]

Yes, installation is required. Having an ETC without installing it is useless. According to the State Council's regulations, vehicles that have not applied for or are not using ETC by 2020 will not enjoy toll discounts. In the future, only one manual lane will remain at highway toll stations, and tolls can only be paid through manual channels. How ETC Works: Through the onboard electronic tag installed on the vehicle's windshield, dedicated short-range communication is established with the microwave antenna in the ETC lane at the toll station. Computer networking technology is then used for backend settlement processing with the bank, allowing vehicles to pass through highway or bridge toll stations without stopping while still paying the tolls. ETC Deduction Principle: For ETC vehicles, the toll amount is rounded down (i.e., amounts less than 0.5 yuan are discarded, while amounts equal to or greater than 0.5 yuan remain unchanged) before applying a 5% discount. The final amount is then rounded to the nearest cent. MTC vehicles still follow the "round to the nearest yuan" rule. All of this is based on the principle of "pass first, deduct later." Benefits of Installing ETC: Time-saving: Eliminates the hassle of waiting in queues; Green and eco-friendly: Low-carbon solution—vehicles pass toll stations without stopping, reducing noise and emissions and minimizing pollution; Reduced wear and tear: Saves costs by decreasing the frequency of vehicle starts and brakes, lowering wear and fuel consumption; Improved efficiency: ETC lanes theoretically increase throughput efficiency by 2-3 times, making traditional ETC faster, more advanced, and higher-tech. Compared to license plate payment, ETC technology is more mature and advantageous. More policy support: The State Council explicitly stated in the "13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of a Modern Comprehensive Transportation System" that "by 2020, intercity transportation smart cards will be widely interoperable in key urban clusters, and the proportion of vehicles equipped with ETC will significantly increase." It also set a clear target in the "13th Five-Year" comprehensive transportation development indicators: "By 2020, the ETC usage rate for road passenger vehicles should reach 50%." More future possibilities: In addition to continuously improving the convenience of ETC installation and usage rates for passenger vehicles, efforts will be made to promote ETC adoption for trucks. Future developments will explore deeper integration of ETC systems with vehicle-to-vehicle communication, vehicle-to-infrastructure coordination, and other smart transportation directions, providing comprehensive travel services for vehicle owners. This means more application scenarios will support ETC usage.