Toll Discount

1. Toll discount of 10% will be given to owners of private cars and light vehicles who used the North-South Expressway Central Link(Elite) Highway during low traffic hours from Jan 1 to end of 2010, with additional discount during festive seasons.

More incentives are expected from other highway concessionaires soon.
Yesterday, the country's biggest highway concessionaire, Plus Expressway Bhd. announced incentives for travel on the two highways, the result of negitiations in recent months with the government which had been pushing for toll reductions.
"Plus's initiative is in line with the government's call to give added value to highway users, especially during the current economic situation," said Works Minister Datuk Mohd Zin Mohamad at the launch of the Plus Travel Incentive Programme yesterday.
The icng on the incentive cake is that all Class 1(private cars and light vehicles) highways between midnight and 7.00 am will get a 10 % toll discount. This could mean a saving of about Rm4 for the journey from Kuala Lumpur to Penang. Together with the other incentives(see table), the savings would amount to more than 20%.
Mohd. Zin said the incentives went through an indepth study and evaluation by a Malaysian Highway Authority(L.L.M) committee from May."This iniative is part of Plus's corporate social responsibility(CSR) and does not require the government paying compensation," he said, adding that previously the government paid huge compensation to the concessionaires to maintain or reduce toll rates.
He said although the companies made good profit, the terms of the concession agreement called for compensation to redice toll rates or to maintain them although they were to be increased.
On the other 20 highways , Mohd. Zin said eight of them could not reduce their toll rates for various reasons: going through financial problems. debt restructuring, newly operating, concession period ending next year and some were under receiver and manager. He did not name the eight.
Mohd. Zin hoped the rest will come up with toll reductions soon.
He also announced in a stetement that all toll highway operators, except one, had agreed to make public their consession agreements, confirming a report in the Sun on Monday that the government had diclassified the agreements.
LLM directir-general Datuk Mohamad Razali Othman urged other concessionaires to make toll reduction their CSR iniative.He also said that since 1988 compensation paid to highway operators was aboutRM 2 billion.