San Miguel Corporation’s (SMC) infrastructure unit said it had made all necessary preparations in anticipation of the heavy volume of traffic this Holy Week on its expressways.
“Our operations teams are prepared for the rush of our kababayans leaving Metro Manila to spend the upcoming holidays with their loved ones in the provinces. We’ve made the necessary adjustments in our manpower deployment to ensure that traffic will flow smoothly along our carriageways and speed up the scanning of Autosweep tags and cards at exits,” SMC President and CEO Ramon Ang said in a statement Tuesday (April 4).
Starting April 3, SMC Infrastructure has increased the presence of manpower at all its tollways to meet the challenges involvingmotorists on their way to their Holy Week destinations, Ang said.
Mobile patrol units have been deployed at strategic locations, while ambulant tellers at major toll plazas will speed up the flow of vehicles heading out of Metro Manila en route to northern and southern provinces.
Meanwhile, SMC Infrastructure has also suspended roadworks at the South Luzon Expressway, (SLEX), Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR), the Skyway System, NAIA Expressway, and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX) from April 3 to April 10 to minimize traffic jams.
‘Seamless’ tollways
To ease flow at toll plazas, SMC Infrastructure implemented last December the Seamless Southern Tollways program which reduced the number of stops for motorists passing the South Luzon Expressway and STAR tollway.
The program since has successfully minimized traffic buildup along the expressways as motorists no longer needed to stop at the Calamba main toll plaza and SLEX Greenfield.
“Before the seamless program, traffic buildup at Calamba usually stretched five to seven kilometers. Now, it is gone. We have no more traffic buildup at Calamba and SLEX Greenfield, and our existing toll plazas there are being dismantled,” Ang noted.