SMC Infrastructure apologizes to all motorists affected by the traffic jams along portions of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Skyway, NAIAx, and STAR Tollway on Thursday morning, resulting from a “momentary network outage” in its electronic toll collection system.
“Our IT teams traced the source of the downtime to a cut in our fiber optic network,” SMC Infra said.
“We are still determining the root cause of the damage, but there are indications that a major vehicular accident may have contributed to the situation,” the firm added.
To help ease traffic congestion, SMC Infra deployed additional field men to assist the motorists.
The company also opened affected toll plazas and waived toll fees.
Some 84,000 vehicles passed through the expressways from 6am to 2pm, Thursday, November 17.
“This includes motorists whose ETC accounts were deducted upon entry; they will receive electronic refunds in their Autosweep accounts,” SMC Infra said.
“While the system was restored around 9 a.m., we decided to keep barriers at toll plazas up, to enable all affected motorists to pass through for free,” it added.