Jakarta. The government announced Tuesday it would begin trial runs of a touchless and non-stop toll road payment system -- a cooperation between Indonesia and Hungary -- at the Bali Mandara toll road next month.

The existing system in Indonesia today requires drivers to tap their chip-based e-money cards at the toll booths. 

Hungarian firm Roatex won an auction for the so-called multi-lane free flow (MLFF) system project in Indonesia in 2021. It has also set up a business entity, Roatex Indonesia Toll System (RITS), to run this project. Once the MLFF is in operation, drivers can pay entry to toll roads without having to stop at a booth. Indonesia originally planned to start testing the new payment system at the Bali Mandara Toll Road in June. After facing some setbacks, the trial was postponed to next month. 

“The MLFF trial run [at the Bali Mandara Toll Road] is set for the second week of Dec. 2023. … After a two-week trial, we will evaluate how things go. If it is a success, we will expand its implementation,” Public Works Minister Basuki Hadimuljono told reporters in Jakarta on Monday. 

“So if we succeed in running the MLFF trial in Bali, we will replicate it in Jakarta. We intend to start with the urban areas,” Basuki said.

The 12.7-kilometer Bali Mandara Toll Road --which connects Ngurah Rai, Benoa, and Nusa Dua-- will still have its toll barriers in place during the upcoming trial run. The barrier will open once the system confirms that the user is registered in the Cantas app and has enough payment balance. E-money still remains an alternative payment method before the government fully implements the MLFF. The trial run in December will also start with just one toll booth.

The Indonesian government spends not a single cent on the project. Hungary is investing $300 million in the project, according to Basuki. Ilona Toth, the Hungarian deputy head of mission in Indonesia, said that the MLFF is “one of the biggest investments in the history of modern Hungary.”

“The [MLFF] is a strategic national project for Indonesia, but it is also very much important for Hungary,” Toth told the press.

Indonesia is banking on the MLFF system to cut queues on its toll roads. A feasibility study by Roatex in 2020 reported that the loss due to queues at toll gates totaled a whopping $300 million each year. 

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