A Study on Electronic Toll Collection Systems in Expressways in Sri Lanka

This paper focuses on the determinants that affects, when introducing prepaid and postpaid Electronic Toll Collection systems to Sri Lankan expressways. Purpose of this research is to identify the user preference between prepaid and postpaid Electronic Toll Collection methods and to identify the determinants that affect such a choice. The study is focusing on analyzing the new implementation of Electronic Toll Collection in Sri Lanka, hence the drawbacks of the current cash based tolling system is identified. At the moment cash is the only available option for the expressway users. With the rapid growth of the traffic density, even the expressways are eventually getting congested especially near the toll gates. As a result, Sri Lankan government is on the process of introducing electronic payment mechanisms in very near future but only one prepaid payment option been considered under their new implementation plans where the users do not have a liberty to make a choice, which is of little benefit. Therefore to check the user preference on electronic toll collection methods, five widely implemented methods been considered which were subsequently divided into two, prepaid and postpaid. Based on the literature, a structured questionnaire survey and interviews were carried out in order to collect primary data. 230 responds were able to collect within the months of November and December 2014 which were used to test the significance of the identified variables using Person's chi squared statistics and binary logistic regression analysis. Secondary data has been collected using literature and previously published reports from RDA, National Transport Commission, Ministry of Transport and The Central Bank. Based on the results it was concluded that only the convenience and vehicle category have a significant association with the dependent variable of Prepaid or postpaid ETC method while combined effect of convenience and vehicle category too have a significant relationship to the dependent variable