ETC promotion, why is it so difficult to get things done?

Recently, ETC has become popular.

ETC was originally designed to simplify the highway tolling process. Car owners do not need to pay manually when passing through the toll station, and they do not need to stop. The highway toll is automatically deducted directly from the card to realize automatic charging. Automatic traffic charging is an important part of realizing smart transportation. However, many places have used excessive force to promote ETC. For example:

A toll station in Xiamen put up this slogan: "Vehicles that do not install ETC and do not respond to the country's call are not welcome to use the expressway";

Since December in Tianjin Starting from 0:00 on the 15th, the entrances to the 6 toll stations on Jinbin Expressway will be equipped with all ETC lanes for passenger cars, and manual toll lanes for passenger cars will not be retained;

In Guilin, Guangxi, a non-local car owner was refused entry because he did not apply for ETC. Expressway, the staff at the expressway toll station declared: "You will not be able to leave Guilin!";

In Lanzhou City, a traffic police detachment erected a sign in front of a BMW accident car. The content of the sign stated that because An accident occurred when waiting in line without applying for ETC.

Luzhai County in Guangxi cannot conduct annual inspections without installing ETC; a toll station in a county-level city in North China does not have an ETC channel, but the agency is allocated installation quotas... Recently, such incidents due to unreasonable promotion of ETC are common.

Is ETC worth installing?

Since May this year, ETC has been vigorously promoted nationwide, because at that time the Ministry of Transport issued the "Notice on Vigorously Promoting the Development and Application of ETC on Highways". The notice stated that by the end of 2019, automobiles The ETC installation rate exceeds 80%, and the ETC utilization rate of vehicles traveling on highways exceeds 90%.

In order to complete this task, all parts of the country began to vigorously promote ETC. Many agencies were assigned installation quotas. If they failed to complete the task, they would be notified and held accountable. Therefore, in some places, in order to achieve targets, "jokes" like the one at the beginning appeared.

However, the original intention of the government to promote ETC is to improve travel efficiency, so that car owners can not only travel more conveniently, but also enjoy more discounts.

Wu Dejin, director of the Highway Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, said, “The traffic efficiency of vehicles without ETC will be significantly reduced, and queuing may occur at entrance and exit toll stations with heavy traffic; at the same time, they will not be able to enjoy toll discounts Discount."

"From the perspective of public convenience, it is recommended that vehicles install and use ETC on-board devices as much as possible. We provide free installation services so that vehicles can travel quickly without increasing costs. And enjoy points, discounts and various preferential policies; it can also improve the traffic efficiency of highways, promote energy conservation and emission reduction, and truly achieve multiple benefits with one stone and enjoy the best.”

In fact. , the functions of ETC are still expanding. For example, many parking lots and gas stations can use ETC for payment.

In terms of ETC promotion methods, Wu Dejin stated at a press conference of the State Council Information Office on December 27 that “it is strictly prohibited to force the installation of ETC in any way and to set up obstacles on highways for non-ETC vehicles.”< /p>

The above-mentioned Tianjin has canceled all artificial lanes at the entrance of expressway toll stations and forced ETC processing. The relevant personnel have been punished and removed from their posts.

Regarding the question that car owners are more concerned about, "Can the expressway still pass without ETC installed?", Sun Wenjian, spokesperson of the Ministry of Transport, recently emphasized that vehicles without ETC can continue to use the Driving on the expressway is to stop at the entrance toll station to collect the card and stop at the exit toll station to pay the card and toll.

Why is ETC opposed?

From the perspective of the introduction time of ETC, China’s ETC started not late. In 1996, Guangdong, Beijing and other places conducted field trials of ETC, and in 1998, a Sutong company specifically responsible for ETC business was established.

However, the ETC installation and usage rate has increased very slowly. Data shows that as of the end of March 2019, the total number of ETC users in China was 80.72 million, the car installation rate was 34%, and the highway ETC payment usage rate was approximately 45%.

Compared with Japan, which was introduced in 1997 and launched nationwide trial operation in 2001, after more than ten years of development, as of the end of 2018, the vehicle ETC usage rate has reached 92%; in Taiwan, China, which started later, It was only launched in 2006. As of the end of 2018, the ETC installation rate was 87% and the usage rate was 94%.

Although ETC has many benefits, why are many domestic car owners still unwilling to install it, or even resisting it? Toutiao Jun summarized the following two reasons:

First, it is basically not used in daily life. Many private cars travel for daily life, commuting to and from get off work, or traveling around. There are very few opportunities to travel thousands of miles, and ETC is basically not used.

Secondly, the ETC experience is not very good, and there are still inconveniences. For example, when reimbursing, the invoicing process is complicated, many ETC devices are unstable, deductions are inaccurate, certain deposits need to be frozen, it is difficult to enjoy discounts, there are worries about being stolen, etc.

According to netizens, when applying for ETC before, not only did it require a deposit of 1,000 yuan, but the equipment at the highway intersection often did not lift the pole, and it was necessary to go back and re-enter the manual lane. After doing this several times, I went directly to the bank to apply. Demolition business.

Relevant investigations show that in several banks in Beijing, when using debit cards to bind ETC, a certain margin needs to be frozen. For example, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Postal Savings Bank debit cards are frozen. The deposit is 500 yuan; Everbright Bank, Hua Xia Bank, and China CITIC Bank freeze 600 yuan; Bank of Beijing freezes 800 yuan; Agricultural Bank of China freezes 1,000 yuan. Moreover, the frozen deposit cannot be used for daily consumption and will only be refunded when ETC is canceled. Hua Xia Bank, Bank of Beijing and other banks stipulate that the deposit can be used when deducting the pass, but it must be ensured that the current balance in the card cannot be less than 200 yuan, otherwise the pass will not be granted.

Many consumers will also be "loaned", and if they forget to repay, they will be sent a lawyer's letter. When the balance of the Bank of Communications ETC debit card is insufficient, the bank will provide the special service of "emergency fund" (Huimin loan). This "emergency fund" can also be regarded as a kind of consumer loan. The interest rate is determined according to the repayment time, with the highest annual interest rate of 16.5 %, the interest is calculated every day you borrow.

In addition, according to the Jiangxi media investigation, it was found that ETC users should have received 28.5 yuan after a 50% discount on the 30 yuan toll, but it was "rounded" by the charging system, and the actual charge was 29 yuan; in the end, it was 29 yuan. The strange thing is that after the 10 yuan toll was discounted by 15%, it should have been 9.5 yuan, but the result was still 10 yuan due to "rounding". The customer service staff of the Jiangxi Provincial Expressway Network Center responded that the billing is based on "yuan" and some discounts cannot be reflected.

From this point of view, ETC is not completely reasonable in terms of technology, management and financial solution design, and there is still a lot of room for improvement.

It is a good thing to encourage car owners to apply for ETC, but it is meaningless to blindly increase the number of installations. Instead of focusing on vigorous promotion, it is better to improve the user experience of ETC and truly consider the vital interests of car owners.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.