Sydney’s Electronic Toll Tags Compared
by Rodney Campbell on Sep.09, 2006, under Life
Electronic tolling tags are currently used on most major Australian toll roads, bridges and tunnels. In Sydney the toll network includes the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Tunnel, M1 Eastern Distributor, M2 Hills Motorway, M4 Western Motorway, M5 South West Motorway, M7 Westlink, the Cross City Tunnel and the soon to be opened Lane Cove Tunnel . Outside of Sydney some major toll roads include Melbourne's City Link and Brisbane's Gateway Bridge and Logan Motorway.
The E-Tag (electronic tag) is a small device which is usually attached to the front windscreen of the vehicle. As the vehicle passes by one of the tolling points of the road, bridge or tunnel, the tag will receive and transmit a signal to the tolling equipment and will beep. This will deduct the appropriate toll amount from your toll account.
There are five different E-Tags you can sign up for and motorists can use any of them on all Australian toll roads:
- E-Toll (RTA)
- E-Way (Interlink Roads)
- Beep Tag (Cross City Motorway)
- Express Tag (Tollaust)
- Roam e-TAG & e-PASS (Transurban)
Before the release of the Roam e-Tag (and the opening of the Westlink M7) the NRMA calculated the costs for each of the first four tags and found the E-Toll and E-way tags are the best value for frequent users, while the E-Toll is best for infrequent users.
Either the NSW RTA E-Toll or the Roam e-TAG are probably the best E-Tags to get as they can have no extra fees (other than the cost of the tolls) and no fees for tag inactivity. You can also get statements posted every quarter for free.
With most of these E-Tags (including the RTA E-Toll and Roam e-TAG) if you want to avoid or limit monthly tag and admin fees you will need to setup an account with:
- an initial pre-paid balance (generally in the order of $50 to $80)
- an automatic payment and top up option (when your balance drops below a certain value – generally around $20 – and it tops up a certyain amount – generally in the order of $50 to $80)
- and you will need to pay the upfront refundable tag depost (generally in the order of $40).
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September 9th, 2006 on 3:46 pm
I think electronic vehicle tagging is a great idea and a strong case can be made for variable roadspace pricing from economic theory as a means of dealing with traffic congestion, in fact it may even be the only practical means of dealing with it (see some discussion here). Anyhow the hassle I have with the current Sydney systems is that they don’t accommodate the occassional user (like me) that well. I might only use the bridge, the tunnel or one of the major tollways four or five times a year. So the upfront cost of investing in tags and accounts is excessive for the utilisation, and I suppose amortising the “trnasaction cost” of set up across my small number actual trips all make it seem an unprofitable activity. After checking out a couple of the schemes I gave up searching again. Thanks for highlighting the Roam E-Tag system as it sounds like it may meet my requirements.
September 1st, 2007 on 6:45 pm
I am driving through Sydney via the M7 and also through Brisbane and back over the 3 weeks between sep-Oct. Does your etoll do both etolls????
April 22nd, 2009 on 10:21 am
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hoaseOccaro
June 11th, 2009 on 11:17 am
I have an account with E-Way.
I just asked for an extra tag and there is now a $40.00 refundable deposit plus a $35.00 non refundable charge for the tag.
Roam does not charge this.
Needless to say I am taking my business to Roam
June 24th, 2009 on 10:16 am
Chris, I work for E-way and I think there must be some confusion regarding our non refundable charge. It is not a standard charge. If you wish to discuss this please ring the customer service centre and ask to speak to me.
August 16th, 2009 on 1:14 pm
My electronic tag keeps falling off my windscreen and I can’t get the old bracket off, I’m scared it will crack the windscreen if I force it. Also, my boyfriend wants to use the tag in his car but he doesn’t want to permanently attach a bracket to his windscreen. Does anyone know of another way of putting your tag on your windscreen? I’ve heard you get toll notices if you just leave your tag on the dash.
October 7th, 2009 on 9:14 pm
Hi Samantha,
I have the same problem with my RTA etoll tag but i didn’t want to put another sticky tape bracket on my windscreen because they’re near impossible to get off and they just look ugly but a friend of mine showed me a bracket he bought called a UNIBRAC. It’s a new bracket out for tags and allows you to mount your tag to your windscreen without sticky tape and move from car to car, like when you mentioned you share a tag with your boyfriend. I bought one and it’s awesome! i reckon you should check out the website, it’s: http://www.unibrac.com
Hope this helps.
Jason
August 16th, 2010 on 10:40 am
Thanks for the information.
I am with Eway at Moorebank but they charge you more for not useign the tag then if you made one trip. Thats quite crazy that the fee is more then one useage charge.
They have our money ofsetting their overdraft interesst plus the deposit on the tagg .guess that offsets the cost.
And the greedy little white collar theives want more.
I have just arranged to move to ROAM and cancell the EWAY .
Its easy and the more that do that the faster Eway will change their greedy ways.
Nothign changes a greedy company’s way then loss of income
Ill go get the old tagg to return to Eway they can collect them all if you all do same.
I have vented my frustration over the unfair fee thanks for reading
January 21st, 2013 on 2:34 pm
What about Roam Express? Am I the only person who thinks it’s an absolute joke that there are two companies with similar names, Roam Express and Roam Tolling?
July 2nd, 2013 on 6:08 pm
I’ve been with Roam for years, and sold my car in October. Come to find out, the people who bought my car were driving through all of Sydney’s tollways, charging up a storm on my credit card!!! I hadn’t looked at my statements for a few months because I hadn’t been using tollways! As soon as I saw it, I removed the license plate from my account and reported the problem to Toll. AFTER that, Toll charged MORE of these trips to my account, and charged MORE money to my credit card. KNOWING that these people were defrauding them, they chose to pass that fraud along to ME. Nice, huh??