KYODO NEWS



 

Automatic lanes at more than 90 expressway tollgates in Tokyo and six other prefectures were shut down Sunday due to a system outage.

Central Nippon Expressway Co. said it opened the affected lanes to traffic, allowing tolls to be paid online later, as it investigates the cause and works to restore the system following a failure in the electronic toll collection control system early Sunday.

The expressway operator apologized for the disruption at a press conference in the evening, saying a system revamp that began the previous day may have caused the failure.

Five people, including two children, were taken to the hospital after a four-vehicle crash near the Toyokawa interchange on the Tomei Expressway in Aichi Prefecture, which was experiencing a traffic jam due to the system failure, police said. No fatalities were reported.

As of 5 p.m., the toll collection system was down on 16 of the 23 expressway sectors operated by the Nagoya-based company.

It was the first large-scale failure of the electronic toll collection system, known as ETC, since Japan Highway Public Corp. was privatized in 2005, the company said.

Tollgates hit with the system disruption include those in the Fuji interchange on the Tomei Expressway in Shizuoka Prefecture, as well as the Chofu interchange on the Chuo Expressway in Tokyo.


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