As the Malaysian government highway operators work towards implementing a multi-lane free flow (MLFF) toll collection mechanism by 2025, lawmakers are now mulling a new penal code that includes harsher penalties for toll fee dodgers.
Works minister Fadillah Yusof has confirmed that his ministry is currently proposing a new criminal law against toll evaders as part of the measures for the implementation of MLFF within the next 24 months, reports FMT.
“This is to avoid leakages as we are looking into the provision of the law that includes a penal code and whether toll evasion can be considered a criminal offence since there is no lane barrier under MLFF,” he told the publication.
The new proposed penal code will include amendments to relevant laws, including the Road Transport Act 1987. However, the minister did not disclose if a jail sentence would be included.
“To have an effective vehicle tracking and driver’s record system, you have to connect with the Road Transport Department (JPJ) database. The relevant law needs to be looked at. There may be a need for a (new) special law, or maybe, the current law needs to be amended,” said Fadillah Yusof.
“This is the biggest challenge. We need to resolve this, including getting the highway concessionaires and other stakeholders to agree in terms of the [new] law.”
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It is understood that the call for new criminal laws against toll evaders was largely due to highway concessionaires’ heightened concern on the probability of higher unpaid tolls under the MLFF toll collection mechanism.
At the moment, even with a barrier toll both mechanism, toll concessionaires are still racking up on unpaid toll fees. Just last year, a company was found to have evaded toll fees worth RM518,369 by its drivers involving 19 vehicles over several years.
Concessionaires can currently only resort to civil suit action against repeat offenders. Toll evaders are charged under Section 8 of the Federal Roads (Private Management) Act 1984, with a fine of between RM2,000 and RM5,000 upon conviction.
The MLFF system will introduce a barrier-free system without toll booths for toll collection, thus harsher laws and more advanced technologies will be needed to dissuade road users from evading tolls, and penalise those who do.
According to Fadillah, the gantry structures will be equipped with automated number plate recognition (ANPR) at specific locations to better identify vehicles and enhance law enforcement.
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High definition cameras will also be installed for the purpose of capturing the faces of the drivers at the gantry. “What if users don’t pay when passing through the MLFF lanes?” he asked. “So, there must be good sensors at the gantry locations and the camera image quality has to be very fine to capture the details of vehicles and also the driver.”
“This will also depend a lot on the ANPR and the link to the JPJ system”, he added, referring to the accuracy of vehicle owner registrations stored in the RFID stickers database, and the system integration among the franchise holders.
