The Hong Kong government's introduction of e-payment for toll fees has gone smoothly. Drivers can use contactless smart cards to pay tolls at Shing Mun Tunnel in the New Territories starting from July 23 and at Aberdeen Tunnel in southern Hong Kong Island since Sept 24. Cash payment is still available, as all toll collectors remain in their booths.

The transition to more convenient e-payment methods, including Octopus, Visa PayWave, Mastercard Contactless and UnionPay QuickPass cards so far, has been a quiet success.

More is coming. When the Shing Mun Tunnel made the change in July, the government informed that similar plans were in place for seven other tunnels. It made good on this promise with Aberdeen Tunnel two months later on Sept 24.

After the first two successful pilot runs, we can expect the remaining six, that is, Cross Harbour, Tseung Kwan O and Lion Rock tunnels, the Lantau Link, Tsing Sha Highway and Eastern Harbour Crossing will have smarter facilities for toll collection in the near future.

Several reasons are behind the adoption of hassle-free e-payment. First, it introduces mainstream e-payment methods that have been widely used in Hong Kong for years. Second, the new system keeps all toll collectors, so motorists only need to stop, swipe smart cards, and then go. If they don't carry such cards or encounter card malfunctions they can still pay in cash.

Introducing changes incrementally, and in phases, makes the process easier to take root.

As more tunnels are scheduled to embrace e-payment for tolls, public acceptance of the new practice will grow. Increased popularity prepares more incremental changes to be introduced on top of the foreseeable ones the government has announced.

Plenty of other developments, especially in the technologies that triggered the transition toward a smarter transport system, may drive further adaptations.

More alternative e-payment methods may be added, given the intensifying competition among powerful new players vying to expand the user base of their e-payment tools in Hong Kong.

The ones currently accepted to handle toll fee payment electronically, such as Octopus and credit cards, earned a place because of unchallenged market dominance in the past decades. This gave them an opportunity to build loyalty among users.

Formidable competitors are in sight. New players have emerged, such as the partnership by Alibaba's Ant Financial and telecom giant CK Hutchison, announced on Sept 26, to operate Alipay HK services. Other entrants include ApplePay and WeChat Wallet, which became more visible e-payment choices in retailing in Hong Kong, thanks to the large numbers of people using Apple devices and WeChat.

The role of manual toll collectors may change, too. As e-payment technologies for toll collection continues to advance, the systems' reliability will go up, while the costs to install them as infrastructure upgrades will go down.

For instance, vehicle detection technology for toll collection, already applied in parking lots, can determine the exact toll fees for different vehicle types, according to the government pricing system for trucks, taxies, private cars, motorbikes, etc. Such technologies may diminish the value of manual toll collectors' services.

For tunnels charging a fixed fee such as the Shing Mun and Aberdeen tunnels, the redundancy of a collector at each booth may be more apparent in the future, when the e-payment system can maintain a high reliability rate.

A couple of collectors may be able to take care of all the booths, deployed there to maintain efficiency and handle unexpected emergencies.

Hong Kong people might tell the next generation 10 or 20 years from now, about the erstwhile mode of toll fee collection, saying "There used to be two people sitting in every toll booth, each of them looking after one-way traffic and collecting tolls. Now it is all cashless and automatic."

More technology-induced lifestyle changes, incremental or drastic ones, will set in. An open mind and a progressive adaptability from individuals and society at large will serve us well.

(HK Edition 10/09/2017 page8)