THE North-South leg of Highway 2000 will not have a fixed toll as is the case on the other legs of the highway, Ivan Anderson, managing director of the National Road Operating and Construction Company (NROCC) said yesterday.

Anderson, who spoke with the Jamaica Observer during a tour of the highway yesterday, said motorists, instead of driving through toll plazas, will pay at the end of their journey. The toll, he said, will be calculated based on the distance travelled rather than having a fixed rate for everybody.

“… At the start [of journey] you get a ticket and wherever you exit you pay a toll,” said the NROCC head. This feature, he said, will improve the service offered to customers.

“It’s much more efficient. When you go through the Vineyards (toll plaza) and then you go through May Pen, and every time you go through you have to pay a toll, but on this section you just pay one toll, based on the distance that you have travelled. So its automatically calculated based on how far you travel,” Anderson explained.

To accommodate this change in structure, the director said the toll plaza in Mount Rosser will be taken down and replaced by a plaza in Treadways — an exit from the thoroughfare.

Anderson was, however, unable to say how the toll would be calculated.

The North-South leg of the highway runs from Caymanas in St Catherine to Ocho Rios, St Ann and is slated to be finished early 2016. When asked of the progress of the construction, Anderson said the construction is on target and will be opened within the first quarter of 2016.

“We have more than 80 per cent of the overall work completed. All the earth works are completed, all the filling is completed, and all the drainage work is completed. So the only thing that’s left is the two ends to tie into Mandela Highway and the North Coast highway at the other,” he said.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who headed the tour party, yesterday expressed her pride in the progress of the highway.

“I did not know that the work on the highway was so advanced, and so I’m very pleased with what I see. It certainly will open this part of the country, and I’m sure Jamaica will benefit greatly as a result of this project,” she said.

She commended the work of the Chinese ambassador, the contractors and Anderson for the execution of the project.

Simpson Miller, who greeted workers throughout her tour, said she was delighted to see that majority of the workers were Jamaicans.

“… I am sure new skills are being passed on to our people by the Chinese and I think that that is very impressive,” she said.

According to Anderson, more than 1,000 Jamaicans are employed for the construction of the highway.