Michael Cash wrote:

> Have you taken a look at the new ETC (Electronic Toll Collection)
> system the tollway folks are pushing so heavily now? I smell a rat
> somewhere in this. The consumer has to purchase and pay for the
> installation of a device to be placed in his vehicle. They receive
> some small discount on the tolls, but I'm not sure how much it is.

Its 15%.

Which pisses me off a bit since with a 50000 yen pre-paid card I got an 
additional 8000 yen worth of tolls - ie 16%. Naturally there was no 
incentive to switch to ETC (especially after adding the installation 
cost and not much in the way of time saved due to the queues at toll 
gates). Earlier this year though, the 50000 and 30000 yen cards were 
suddenly "phased out" - the 10000 yen cards (with only 500 yen bonus) 
remain, though for how much longer.

Having driven about 16000 kilometers since May, a lot of it on highways, 
I'll be getting the ETC thingee soon.



-- 
"Having tried intelligence to win the war on terrorism and achieved 
mixed results - bad and worse - the defense department has decided to go 
the other way and give stupidity a chance." - Alan Abelson