Is ETC Mandatory to Install This Year?
1 Answers
It is not mandatory to install ETC, but vehicle owners are encouraged to do so. According to the State Council's regulations, vehicles without ETC will not enjoy toll discounts starting from 2020. In the future, only one manual lane will remain at highway toll stations, and vehicles without ETC will have to pay tolls through manual lanes. Additionally, newly installed ETC devices cannot be used immediately on highways; they need to be activated first. During free holiday periods, vehicles with ETC can still use highways, and no fees will be deducted when passing through ETC lanes. ETC Billing Principle: Highways will have one or more ETC lanes. Through dedicated short-range microwave communication between the vehicle's on-board electronic tag (installed on the windshield) and the microwave antenna in the ETC lane at the toll station, the computer network technology is used to settle payments with the bank in the background. This allows vehicles to pay tolls without stopping at the toll station, all 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: Promotes low-carbon travel by reducing noise and exhaust emissions since vehicles do not need to stop at toll stations; Reduced wear and tear: Saves costs by minimizing frequent starts and stops, thereby reducing vehicle wear and fuel consumption; Improved efficiency: Theoretically, ETC lanes can process vehicles 2-3 times faster, making traditional ETC more advanced, faster, and high-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, key city clusters will achieve interoperability of transportation smart cards, and the proportion of vehicles equipped with ETC will significantly increase." It also set a 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 usage for trucks in the future. There will also be exploration into deeper integration of ETC systems with vehicle-to-vehicle communication, vehicle-road coordination, and other smart transportation development directions, providing comprehensive travel services for vehicle owners. This means more application scenarios will support ETC usage.
