Empresa Nacional de Autopista (ENA) implemented the Evertec Collection Hub with which it managed to eliminate all the cash toll booths of the North and South Corridors (or highways) in Panama.
ENA was created as state-owned corporation of which the Panamanian state is the whole owner and the shares of which are under the custody of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Article 5 of Law 76 of 2010) and overseen by the Comptroller General of the Republic of Panama.
ENA’s purpose is the construction, conservation, maintenance, administration, financing, and development in Panama of roads and highway tolls and their respective facilities as well as providing auxiliary services to meet the needs of travelers on said roads and of the traffic that runs on them.
ENA’s focus includes managing improvements in road infrastructure and introducing new, state-of-the-art technology, among others.
the challenge
ENA faced the challenge of speeding up traffic by eliminating transactions at the toll booths in the North and South Corridors. The receivables were paid mostly in cash through extensive manual processes. ENA needed a totally new service that would allow it to speed up its collections and streamline this operation.
It had an expedited postpaid product called SurExpress for customers who registered their credit card. However, in order to eliminate 100% of the toll booths, ENA needed an electronic, automated pre-paid solution.
a comprehensive solution with Evertec technology
EVERTEC (previously EFT Group) implemented for ENA its Collection Hub solution integrating it through APIs (or application programming interface) with ENA’s toll system so users could check their balance of their Panapass accounts (using the account number or vehicle plate associated with the account) and recharge in real time.
The Collection Hub was in turn integrated to the country’s main collectors: ePago, Western Union, Grupo Rey, Super 99, El Machetazo, and the PuntoPago self-service kiosks network.
As part of the solution, the ENA and Maxipista staff (corridor operator company) now have access to an updated management portal in real time with all recharge transactions, daily settlement by collector, reports, and graphs.
The project started at the beginning of 2014 and, in August of that same year, the pilot had already been implemented online with its first collector. Once the pilot was completed, the following two collectors were integrated. Subsequently, once the project was finalized with the implementation of tag readers and user enrollment, mass roll-out of the solution took place in December 2014 with the elimination of all the toll booths in the North and South Corridors. Currently, ENA continues to use the Evertec’s Collection Hub with great success.
the result
ENA managed to eliminate all the cash collection toll booths in the North and South Corridors and perform up to 600,000 cash recharges, generating more than $6 million per month in the more than 1,000 recharge points integrated into the Collection Hub.
Luis A. Abrego G., - General Manager ENA, S.A.
