NLEX Corp. said it expects vehicle traffic to rise as much as 6 percent this year despite the anticipated travel decline due to rising fuel prices.
NLEX president and chief executive Rodrigo Franco said the company was looking at a 5-percent to 6-percent vehicle traffic growth this year.
“There are much more constraints, the fuel prices are rising so sooner or later if the trend continues, people are going to reduce their travel,” he said.
The vehicle traffic in North Luzon Expressway reached an average of 237,046 daily entries last year, 8 percent higher than in 2016, while traffic in Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway reached 54,566 in daily vehicle entries, up 21 percent.
The average daily traffic in NLEx reached 250,989 vehicles in the first quarter of 2018, up 9.3 percent year-on-year.
NLEX earlier reported a net income of P1.29 billion in the first quarter, up 20 percent from 1.07 billion in the same period last year.
Revenues increased 16 percent to P3.23 billion from P2.79 billion in the first quarter of 2017.
NLEx currently spans approximately 95 kilometers or 527-lane kilometers, serving an average of 237,046 vehicles a day in 2017. It is the main infrastructure backbone that connects Metro Manila to Central and Northern Luzon.
SCTEx, meanwhile, is a 94-km, 2×2 expressway stretching from Subic-Tipo until La Paz, Tarlac, connecting the special economic zones in Subic and Clark, Olongapo City, to Tarlac City.
The toll road company earlier budgeted P19 billion in capital expenditures this year to build new expressway projects to help solve Metro Manila’s traffic bottlenecks.
It is spending to construct the urban portions of North Luzon Expressway, such as the Harbor Link Segment 10 (including the R10 Section in Dagat-Dagatan, Navotas City) and the NLEx-SLEx Connector Road project.
Expected to be opened this year, Harbor Link Segment 10 is a 5.7-kilometer elevated expressway traversing NLEx from Smart Connect Interchange and cross over MacArthur Highway in Valenzuela City with down ramps along C3/5th Avenue Interchange in Caloocan City.