COME next month, users of the Phase 1C leg of Highway 2000 that runs from May Pen, Clarendon to Williamsfield, Manchester will start paying a toll, after TransJamaican Highway reached an agreement with the National Road Operating and Construction Company (NROCC) to operate the road.

Ivan Anderson, CEO of TransJamaican Highway, made the announcement to shareholders of the company at their annual general meeting on Tuesday.

“We have been working with NROCC now for the past two years in finalising the arrangements for Phase 1C, and just last week the Cabinet of Jamaica has now approved the awarding of a concession to TransJamaican for the Phase 1C leg of the highway from May Pen to Williamsfield,” Anderson told shareholders.

Anderson said the addition of toll collection on that leg of the highway should boost revenues at the company by a further US$9 million per annum. For 2023, TransJamaican Highway recognised US$75.2 million in revenues. For the first quarter of its current financial year, January to March, it has already realised US$19.8 million in revenues.

“Next year we expect our revenues to be up 12 per cent over our revenues this year,” Anderson noted. The concession was approved for the next 12 years and will expire in 2036 along with all concessions which TransJamaican Highway operates. The company has a 35-year concession agreement that was first entered into in 2001 and revised in 2011. The amount of the toll is yet to be announced, but Stephen Edwards, managing director of NROCC, said the charge will apply to motorists using the road in the next few weeks.

“We are aiming for a mid-August date for the commencement of toll on the May Pen to Williamsfield highway. The exact date will be communicated by the Government of Jamaica in short order,” Edwards told the audience in attendance.

TransJamaican Highway said it will operate the 28 kilometres Phase 1C leg of the highway under a separate company, though it did not reveal the name of the entity.

“It allows us to isolate TransJamaican Highway from any issues that could possible occur from this new company. So therefore, the TransJamaican shareholder or bondholder should not be affected in any thing that happens in this new company, except positively with dividends,” Anderson added when asked to clarify why the concession for the Phase 1C leg of the highway will be operated under a different company from TransJamaican Highway.

He was also asked if the company he heads would consider acquiring the concession to operate the North South Highway which is now operated by China Harbour Engineering Company.

“It’s not an opportunity that we are seeing just yet. We have had a few discussions in the past, but nothing has materialised just yet. It’s an opportunity that is obviously something that is within what we do and if it came up, definitely it is something that we will definitely take advantage of,” Anderson said.

He indicated as well that if the Government should go ahead an add a new access road from the Mandela highway to Portmore, it could face legal action.

“We believe that any new access like that would violate the existing concession agreement and make up eligible to make a claim against the Government of Jamaica. Obviously that’s not where we want to get, so we continue to discuss with the Government, what are the options, how we may be able to facilitate what they want to do in a kind of win win situation.”

Still, he said the company is actively eyeing the opportunity to operate the concession for the new toll road that will be built along the North coast from Ocho Rios to Montego Bay and the Montego Bay perimeter road in St James.

The north coast highway which is to be built with US$800 million secured from the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The Montego Bay Perimeter road on the other hand, is being financed through the budget.

But, getting new concessions is not the only way the company is planning to boost revenues. Anderson said the company has made a slew of technology changes and will add new ramps to encourage more users on the road, after customers indicated the change in surveys.

“In 2021, when we did our survey, 19 per cent of our customers, the biggest group, said cost. But when we did the survey again in 2023, cost was not the number one issue…customers wanted rest stops with a petrol stations and shops,” he said.

“As you know, we have been talking to Rubis for some time, and we have now finally signed an agreement with Rubis to operate a new gas station facility with convenience store and shop at the Portmore location… in the next few months. So, the agreement is signed, Rubis has now submitted all their drawings and the application for planning approval to the relevant agencies, and once they receive approval, they will commence construction of the new facility.”

He also said the compant is now testing real time updates for customers who use tags to pay for using the roads. Currently, users who top up tags through the app or online, have to wait two hours for the funds to be reflected in TransJamaican Highway’s information system.

“A lot of people leave work, forget that they never topped up, try and top up but then they recognise that the system hasn’t been updated when they get to the toll plaza. So we have now updated the system again, so that the top ups are now real-time,” Anderson boasted of the improvement to come.

“We are also testing what we call WhatsApp top up. Everybody has a WhatsApp account, right? So what if you can top up your account using WhatsApp. Before the end of the year, we will have WhatsApp top-ups in place,” he added.

He said adding more reversible lanes, at the Portmore toll plaza should also speed up usage of the road and encourage more people to use it.

“This year we have also added what we call reversible lanes at Portmore. You know we have 21 lanes at Portmore and we run eleven lanes in one direction in the morning. We have now added some additional lanes, rather than running 11 lanes, we can now run twelve lanes, both in the evenings and mornings.”

He said when the Mandela Highway was expanded, traffic on the Portmore leg picked up slowly. The Portmore leg of the highway processed 13.6 million vehicles last year contributing US$33.6 million in revenue or 44.68 per cent of the total. Altogether, TransJamaican Highway’s four toll plazas (Portmore, Spanish Town, Vineyards and May Pen) processed 27.1 million vehicles in 2023, a record, up five per cent from 2022 and 12 per cent above the pre-pandemic level of 24.1 million vehicles.

The company has also made its easier for customers to access tags, deploying employees to sell them to customers waiting in line at the booths and also to get them easily from the toll collectors without the need for presenting vehicle documents. It has also introduced payments using credit cards since February of this year.

“We have increased the number of people using tags by about 50 per cent [over the last year] and our goal is to get to 80 per cent of the road users using tags over the next three to four years. What we see happening is, yes, we will have less (sic) toll collectors, people in the lanes themselves collecting tolls, but we expect to have more back-office people dealing with transactions, responding to the public, so as we reduce the number of toll collectors, we expect that the back office people will also increase. So right now we have not had any reduction in staff numbers as a result of the increase in tag usage,” Anderson said in response to the push to have more customers using tags.

He also said the company is seeking to add more ways for people to tap up the tags outside of through the app, online or in the toll booths.

“We also expect to be announcing in the next few weeks, new top up partners. Right now, you can top up by your phone, you can top up by the Web, you can top up in the lane, and in the next few weeks you can top up with
WhatsApp. We are now adding additional ways to top up. You know in every gas station, every supermarket, every store has a point-of-sale machine where you can buy phone credit for example. In the next few weeks, we will offer through those same machines in those stores, the ability to top up your account through those machines in those stores as well.”

The long talked about increased access ramps are also being built now. Anderson said the company is spending $330 million to add new ramps off Old Harbour Road in St Catherine to capture more people travelling to Kingston from new communities such as Silver Sun, Orchard and Jacaranda and also another ramp at Freetown on the border of Clarendon and St Catherine to give easier access to people living in Longville Park, Old Harbour Village, and surrounding areas. This is expected to increase May Pen revenues by approximately six per cent.