Tolls in general

Tolls means fees paying. A toll road will have a toll plaza or a toll booth located across a road. It is also known as Premium Roads. There are also toll bridges and toll tunnel.

Toll roads, bridge and tunnel exist for various reasons:

1. To collect funds to cover up the incurred construction cost and maintenance cost of the road. All these “premium” infrastructure are almost always branded as premiums as involving higher quality build materials for increase speed limits and longevity of the structure. These translated to a higher cost of building and maintenance than normal infrastructure. The maintenance is usually very tight. Failure of maintenance will cost serious consequences like collapsed bridge and tunnels, accidents and dangerous pot holes on highway.
2. To collect revenue for the state. It is obvious that the state will gain some form of revenue from the tolls. These revenue will be used for upgrading other facilities and value added services.
3. To control traffic and usage. Toll infrastructure always exist along with non-toll infrastructure. When come to the concept of premiums, it will be accompany with a fee. User can use a faster connection using premium facilities but with a fee, or use free facilities with a longer commute and far indirect connections. Some country place toll in order to reduce individual vehicles on roads as to reduce the city traffic volume (and air pollution) and encourage the use of pooled vehicles and public transport.

Tolls can be collected either via cash counters or Digital prepaid cards. Digital or smart cards are preferred as it will shorten the queue for transaction.

Maintenance of toll plaza and toll booths was also not free. It involves man power and maintenance of building structures, automation devices and computer systems. The maintenance of toll plazas and booth occasionally cost a significant lost to the revenue gain from tolls.

Many are skeptical about existence of toll roads as some are considered regressive taxation and have burden to the lower income population rather than higher income populations.

Malaysian Expressway System

The Malaysian Expressway System forms the backbone networks of nation controlled roads and highways in Malaysia.

They were 30 expressways in the country and the total length is 1,821 kilometers. The well known expressway are the North–South Expressway which passes through all the major cities (Penang, Ipoh, the Klang Valley and Johor Bahru) in Peninsular Malaysia.

The major reason behind building the Expressway in Malaysia is because of increasing traffic volume in the existing Federal Route. These increase in traffic volume is due increase of population in major cities and towns, increase connectivity with bigger ports and airports, and increasing affordability of private transport vehicles. The building of Expressways accelerate the development of surrounding areas and reduce the connection time between cities.

Toll Expressway in Malaysia

All Malaysian toll expressways are controlled-access highway and managed in the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) system.

Controlled-access highway are also known as freeway or motorway, with the main purpose of unhindered flow of traffic (road vehicles), which it have no traffic signals, intersections, pedestrian paths, railways or property access directly to the Expressway. The only entrance and exit from the expressway is via specific interchanges to the collector roads. There are also feature of pedestrian footbridge, underpass or overpass for other roads and railroads, which do not directly connected with the highway.

Build–operate–transfer (BOT) usually applicable to various infrastructure projects including roads, railways and mass transit. It is a model that allows public-private partnership. To relieve the burden on the public finance alone (government), these infrastructure is usually designed, financed, build by private sector via a agreement or contract. After the construction of the infrastructure, the private sector have the ownership and rights to collect back revenue to recover the initial cost of building and maintenance for a certain period of time as per contract. However the infrastructure will be transferred back to the public administration once the contract expired.

Toll expressways in Malaysia are classify into Open tolls, close tolls and mixed (Open and Closed) tolls.

Open tolls will incur a fix payment to the user on the particular section of the expressway. While Closed Tolls require a ticket or PLUStransit cards during the entrance of the expressway and payment according to how much had been traveled at the exit of the expressway. When it involves a whole stretch of road like the north-south Expressway, it will become a mix variety.

The Open Tolls in Malaysia:

• Federal Highway (2)
• Second Link Expressway (E3)
• Shah Alam Expressway (E5)
• Cheras-Kajang Highway (E7)
• Kuala Lumpur-Karak Expressway (E8)
• Sungai Besi Expressway (E9)
• New Pantai Expressway (E10)
• Damansara-Puchong Expressway (E11)
• Ampang-Kuala Lumpur Elevated Highway (E12)
• Butterworth-Kulim Expressway (E15)
• Butterworth Outer Ring Road (E17)
• Kajang Dispersal Link Expressway (E18)
• Maju Expressway (E20)
• Western KL Traffic Dispersal System (E23)
• Tun Salahuddin Bridge (E24)
• Kuala Lumpur-Kuala Selangor Expressway (E25)
• Seramban-Port Dickson Highway (E29)
• New North Klang Straits Bypass (E30)
• Duta-Ulu Klang Expressway (E33)
• Guthrie Corridor Expressway (E35)
• Penang Bridge (E36)
• Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (E38)

The Closed Tolls in Malaysia :

• New Klang Valley Expressway (E1)
• North-South Expressway, Central Link (E6)
• East Coast Expressway (E8)
• Senai-Desaru Expressway (E22)
• South Klang Valley Expressway (E26)

The Mixed Tolls in Malaysia:

• North-South Expressway, Northern Route (E1)
• North-South Expressway, Southern Route (E2)
• Kajang-Seremban Highway (E21)
• Penang Second Bridge (E28)

The Toll scenarios of Sarawak

We know that Peninsular Malaysia have many toll expressways. What about the Toll scenarios in Sarawak ?

The Tun Salahuddin Bridge in Kuching is the first only toll expressway in East Malaysia. The 6-lane, dual-deck Tun Salahudin Bridge is an elegant, 339 meters long, 28 meters wide low-level bridge over the Sarawak River. The bridge is completed on September 2003 and toll concession started on October 2003. However it was declared toll free after the ending of the 12 years toll concession in 1st January 2016.

The Sibu’s Lanang Bridge is a 1220 meter bridge constructed in 2003 across the Batang Rajang river. It comprises dual carriageway, four balanced cantilever spans and eight equal spans of 40 meters length at each side of the cantilever spans. It replace the former river ferry service that allow connection between Sibu and Sarikei (part of the Pan Borneo Highway at the Sarikei-Sibu section). The bridge is opened to public on 11 April 2006. Lanang Bridge is the lifeline of the people of Rajang River Basin, the initial toll had cause many criticism and burden to the locals. Although it meant to be a toll bridge for 22 years, however following a discussion between Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem, Wong and Shin Yang Group of Companies chief executive officer Tan Sri Datuk Ling Chiong Hoe (the builder of the RM180 million bridge), Lanang Bridge becomes a toll free bridge staring 24 May 2015.

The Batang Baram Bridge or ASEAN Bridge is a 1040 meters bridge with 19 spans, crossing the Batang Baram river. It is located approximately 35km north of Miri City, 2km upstream of the New Miri Port Complex. It allows direct road access between Sarawak and Brunei with one of the end connecting the immigration Checkpoint at Sungai Tujuh. The Asean Bridge replacing the previously ferry service across Batang Baram. The Bridge completed in August 2003. The Asean Bridge was rated the most expensive toll bridge in Sarawak for the short distance traveled, quoting RM10 per use for a normal car. It creates much burden to the frequent travelers and daily commute between Miri and Brunei. Beginning 1st June 2015, the toll collection at the Asean Bridge in Miri was abolished.

The toll-free Sarawak policy was announced by Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem in April 2015.

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, when launching the upgrading of construction works of the Pan Borneo Highway near Bintulu in April 2015, promised that the highway throughout Sarawak would be toll-free. The reasons being as this was the only highway linking the cities and towns of this vast state.

During the December Sarawak Legislative Assembly sitting in 2015, Adenan also reiterated that the state’s portion of the Pan Borneo Highway would be toll-free.

The prerequisite for implementing Tolls

There is few prerequisite for a toll roads or bridge.

• Toll infrastructure is also view as a “premium access” infrastructure. It will be a value added infrastructure that is different from preexisting infrastructure. These infrastructure is usually with higher quality, complexity and better maintenance service.
• Toll infrastructure usually co-exist with non-toll infrastructure for a competitive advantage. For example to connect a same destination, people can choose between a choice of toll expressway for faster and smoother access but with a fee, or a choice of a free country road which is longer and congested. However if it is the only road that connect the destinations, it would not be rational for toll implementation as it will directly affecting the lifeline of connectivity.
• Toll infrastructure is usually very objective specific. For example All Toll Expressway in Malaysia are controlled-access highway. Vehicles can only enter or exit via specific interchanges to the collector roads. All controlled-access Highway prevents pedestrians and bicyclists from using the expressway, some are off limit to industrial and construction vehicles.
• Toll infrastructure is usually strategically located where affordability is not an issue. If the expenses of using is much higher than what the local population can afford, it reduce the demand of its use and diminish the reason for its existence in the first place.

The imminent upgrade to the life line of Sarawak

Vision 2020 is near and our nation is in need to achieve to be a high income nation by year 2020. However at current stage, there is still a gap between high income states and low income states, which postponed the vision of high income status to 2030. In dire needs of accelerating socio economic growth, many game changing strategies must take place.

The paradigm shift had been taken place via 11th Malaysian Plan in 2016, in keeping with New Development Model, together with Sarawak Socioeconomic Transformation Plan (SETP) and Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE).

The Pan Borneo Highway project is launch under Sarawak Socioeconomic Transformation Plan with objective not only to raise the income of the many rural areas connected by the highway, but also accelerate the socioeconomic growth along the 1,089 km long highway in Sarawak side, creating new opportunity and efficient connection between many towns and cities.

The limitations for a toll expressway in current Sarawak

Much had worried initially about to toll issues prior to year 2015. There is many limitations in implementing the toll in Pan Borneo Highway.

• The Pan Borneo Highway is currently the only direct road access that connects most major cities and towns in Sarawak. It is a major lifeline of the socioeconomic of Sarawak. Unlike Peninsular Malaysia which have extensive network of peripheral and secondary roads to all important sectors, cities and town. The current Pan Borneo Highway project involves upgrading 779km of preexisting road from single carriageway to double carriageway. Toll implementation in this highway will severely impaired the potential of a expected accelerated socioeconomic growth.
• The current highway not only travel by private motor vehicles, it also travel by timber lorries, palm oil trucks, tractors and trailers, vehicle transport trailers, oil trucks and many industry and commercial vehicles. Toll implementation will raise the transportation cost within Sarawak, which indirectly will increase the price for retail goods (Sarawak already have higher price for retail goods in compared to the same goods sold in Peninsular Malaysia)
• Many user of the roads are middle and low income population from the rural areas. Toll implementation will burden the local folks who need to travel from village to town daily for selling of their harvest like fish, vegetable and fruits.
• The current highway roads is innervated with many side junctions and intersections, connecting many long houses and road side village. With some important infrastructure like clinics, schools and place of worship just beside the road. It is impractical to make the current road into an toll expressway as it will cost much more to relocate farms and properties, building and maintain toll booths with many intersection, and building overpass and underpass for cross road connectivity.

Sarawak- A toll free state

In the short term, the building of Pan Borneo Highway project is a heavy financial burden to the state, but looking forward to its untapped potential and exponential socioeconomic growth it brings to the local, the cost of building and maintaining the Pan Borneo Highway can be slowly offset by a higher income and revenue generated by the growth along the Highway in the long term.

Tolls is a double edge sword. The benefit of being able to recover the initial building cost and structural maintenance are sometimes causing negative impact on the socioeconomic growth of the locals, especially to areas with predominantly middle and low income groups.

In the race with time to meet the dateline for socioeconomic growth and achieving a high income state, the idea of tolls is been abolished, at least during this critical period of transformation of Sarawak.

That brings to a conclusion of Sarawak being a toll-free state in Malaysia.

Side note: At least those bicyclists who wish to cycle across the northern Borneo island from Kuching till Sabah can still do so via the Pan Borneo Highway (unless it is gazette as control-access highway one day).

This ambitious project not only to upgrade the existing road infrastructure, but also improved connectivity inter-state and inter-country, that will be the game changer that will catalyses the economic growth along the north coast of Borneo Island, which forms the backbone of the Northern Economic Corridor of Borneo Island.

The potential of northern corridor of Borneo Island

Borneo Island is the third largest island in the world (after Greenland and New Guinea) spanning an area of 743,330 square kilometers. It is also the Largest island in Asia.

The North Coast of Borneo Island is shared by Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah (Sarawak and Sabah is part of Malaysia), while the other part of the Island on the south is occupy by Kalimantan Indonesia.

The North Coast of Borneo is adjacent to the South China sea, which is the major shipping route which carries one third of the world’s shipping passes and connects many major international ports. Shipping trades as far from Europe nation can pass through straits of Malacca and Taiwan via South China Sea to trade with China, Japan and Korea.

The South China Sea is also known for its fisheries and natural deposits of natural gas and petroleum.

The Borneo island’s economy is mainly depends on Agriculture, Logging and Oil & gas. Borneo is rich with natural resources, scattered around deep forrest and sea. At north Borneo, Sabah and Sarawak is famous for exports of Timber, liquified natural gas and petroleum while Brunei is  the largest oil producer of oil in Southeast Asia. Sarawak also famous for oil palm, black pepper plantations while Sabah famous for rubber, cacao, vegetables, and for its fisheries.

Along the north coast of Borneo there is also few sea ports available, major ones are like Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu and Miri in Sarawak; Labuan, Sandakan, Tawau and lahad datu in Sabah; Kuala Belait and Seria in Brunei.

Other than agriculture, oil and shipping, the North Borneo have two major hydroelectric dams in Sarawak namely Bakun dam and Batang Ai dam. These two power generating behemoth generates massive amount of renewable energy for the growing cities and industries along the north coast.

Furthermore with natural parks with native preserved rainforest, world recognized prehistoric caves , beautiful natural coral reefs , relaxing sun scorching beaches , all forms a ecotourism backbone of the north Borneo.

Hence it is crucial in connecting all the north Borneo developing zones in order to create a economic powerhouse. The Northen Economic Corridor is imminent in near future, and the Pan Borneo Highway projects will accelerate the development.

The Challenges Along the North Coastline

Along the North coast of Borneo Island, there are many scattered cities and towns with many independent agriculture, commercial, and tourism zones. However there had been many challenges to connecting all of them efficiently due to uneven terrains and huge rivers.

For decades, many had travel the mountainous roads with dangerous curves and steep downhill roads. The federal route, part of existing trans Borneo Highway is mainly a 2-lane single carriageway, which limits the carriage capacity. Due to the nature of the terrain, many of the routes are not suitable for overtakes and fatal road accidents are not uncommon.

Among the ussage of the roads are oil tanker trucks, timber trucks, cargo lorries, car carrier trailers, palm oil carrying  trailers, long distance tour busses etc. These posses traffic dangers to the smaller vehicles when comes to winding 2 lane single carriageways.

Major terraforming is imminent for a upgrade to 4-lane double carriageway as many of the existing roads are steep and winding around hills, which is not suitable for high speed travels.

Rivers been known to connects many of the in-land towns and villages.

The Rajang River is one of the largest and longest river in Malaysia with approximately 563 km length, connecting various towns along the rivers namely Sibu, Kanowit, Sarikei, Bintangor, Song and Belaga. To build bridges across this mile wide river is a great challenge.

Another great challenge is the 3 miles wide Batang Lupar river that is known to have frequent tidal bore. There are many other rivers along the north coastline that challenge the road building along the coastline to connect all the towns and cities.

This also making Sarawak as one of the state with most airport in Malaysia. The major airport are Kuching International Airport, while the smaller airports are Miri Airport, Sibu Airport and Bintulu Airport. There are also minor airports scattered around deep inland like the Mukah Airport, Mulu Airport, Bario Airport, Kapit Airport, Marudi Airport, Lawas Airport, Limbang Airport and many more.

Sarawak being the biggest state in Malaysia and full of natural resources is in desperate need for upgrades of the current infrastructure in order to grow and compete with other parts of Malaysia. It is predicted that the economy will grow as much as eight times its present level when the Pan Borneo Highway is completed in 2030.

Sarawak Socio-Economic Transformation Plan (SETP)

The Sarawak state government has formulated the Sarawak Socio-Economic Transformation Plan (SETP) covering a period of 15 years, starting this year until 2030.

The main purpose of this plan is to ensure Sarawak achieves a high income and developed status by 2030. It covering all sectors of the economy including the development and introduction of roads, airports, ports, water, electricity, telecommunications, information and technology (ICT), healthcare, and education infrastructures.

This plan will minimized the developmental discrepancies between Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, so that Malaysia as a whole can work together towards a developed nation in the near future.

The plan will be executed in phases starting with the 11th Malaysian plan. The Pan Borneo Highway Project is one of the keystone in achieving the Socio-Economic Transformation.

Pan Borneo Highway was long been a Great Dream

The origins of a planned trunk road connecting the expansive states of Sarawak and Sabah with Brunei in between date back to the 1960s when it was known as the Trans-Borneo Highway. Since then the connecting trunk roads are build gradually.

As of 2002, about 95.2% (997.18 kilometres) of the highway has been completed. However most of its federal route still mainly a 2-lane single carriageway of JKR R3 standard design.

Travel across the vast state of Sarawak continues to be a long journey – up to 19 hours from Sematan to Miri currently.

To improve connectivity, an imminent upgrades need to take place, and hence the Pan Borneo Highway project takes off.

The great dream takes off

The Pan Borneo Highway was first announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in April 2013 as part of Barisan Nasional’s manifesto during the 13th General Election and it was later formalised in Budget 2015.

The Pan Borneo Highway project was devided into multiple phases and upgrading sections. The entire project, estimated to cost RM29 billion, is expected to be completed in 2023.

The Sarawak portion of the highway project will involve the upgrading of 779km of single carriageway to dual carriageway and construction of many new bridges across rivers and flyovers/interchanges.

The Pan Borneo Highway project had been devided into 11 packages.

At current stage, three packages have been launched between Sept 15 last year and April 17 this year. They have started the construction of the highway between Telok Melano and Sematan, Serian roundabout to the Pantu junction and the Bintangor junction to Sungai Kua Bridge.

The Current Environmental and Social Economic Effect of Pan Borneo Highway Project

The Pan Borneo Highway project takes off with a great momentum. A maga project is never being simple. It is like a great bulldozers grazing over the landscape, moving away hills and filling up valleys. So how does it actually happen ?

Along the existing trans Borneo roads, there have been many developed houses, villages, farmlands and infrastructure, which is very close to the trunk road.

Furthermore the existing trunk roads are not straight, they had been curve around hills and valleys. To have a straighten roads may means moving hills and flattening valleys which involve in massive sum of money.

These challenge the upgrade of the carriageway. Upgrading the roads from 2 lane to 4 lane doesn’t means just adding an extra lane each side. In order to have a effective high speed carriageway, winding roads must be straighten. The effort of straightening them effectively cause the expansion of work area 3 or more times its initial area. This also causing many of the preexisting road side structure to be removed.

The initial aim for expansion is to remove non-residential structure in the vicinity of the projects, including residential gates and gardens. However the upgrades also pushing the trunk edge dangerously close to the residential doorstep. Hence many had to abandon their home and rebuilt it at different location. Mostly affected are scattered independent farm housing that is not properly planned initially.

At some area where major changing of landscaping (removing hills along the highway) and earthworks to build the dual carriageway is required, houses and farms are removed. House owners in these area  received compensation or ex-gratia payments and are advised to move out and vacate the area as soon as possible to avoid any future complications. It is clearly seen along the Serian-Pantu Junction road where many houses are evacuated and demolished.

Even landmarks structure are not spared. The durian landmark of Serian are force to relocated in the wheel of development of the Pan Borneo Highway.

Some of the schools, clinics and religious buildings are spared from destruction, however some of the non building structures like gates and fence are relocated. With a 4 lane double carriageway highway, there are limitation for pedestrian crossings.

Many trees and area are clear off in the way of the highway projects. Exposed earth and bare lands is now a common scene along the highway project. Road users are advised to be careful while driving as there may be detour to the existing roads.

Pan Borneo Highway Project in the Long Run

In the long run, all this limitations will be offset by a greater benefit from the economy and connectivity, as the motto sounds “Efficient Connections”.

It reduce the numbers of sharp curves and winding road, which increase safety during travel. Shorter and smoother highway will allow road travel to be faster across Northern Borneo.

It is a toll free highway in Malaysia, and this will have added benefit for lower cost of transportation in the long run.

So lets us anticipate the completion of the Pan Borneo Highway by 2030 and successful socioeconomic transformation to the Northern Borneo Economic Corridor.

For more recent updates, please stay tune on the official Pan Borneo Highway website : http://www.panborneo.com.my/