COVID-19 is a pandemic disease that has created a severe outbreak in the world starting from China to almost every country. It has a major impact almost on everything including the world economy, human life, industrial sector, automotive sector, and others as a result demand and consumption rate gets lowered. Inaccessibility of vaccines to remedy or avoid the disease from spreading is a major reason due to which lockdown has been started for anticipation and to lower the COVID-19 spread. To control the disease spread, lockdown is so distant and is considered to be the superior arrangement watched within the numerous nations but it moreover has an unfavorable effect on the economy. The lockdown impacted the manufacturing industry, chemical industry, healthcare, mining, logistics industry, construction, electronics, and other locations as all facilities are closed which is a reason behind the slow market growth. The global impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were already starting to be felt and have significantly affected the ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) market in 2020.
The COVID-19 cases reaching the big named countries with a strong dominance in the global market has adversely affected the economy globally. The spread of Coronavirus has led to the global recession, COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global economy in three major ways: by its financial impact on firms and financial markets, by directly affecting production and demand, and by creating supply chain disruption. There has been a disruption in the supply chain of many industries due to restrictions in logistics and the closing of manufacturing facilities. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought effects on many aspects, such as flight cancellations; lockdown and restrictions imposed, travel bans and quarantines, and uncertainty about the future. As a result of all these travel bans and restrictions, there have been extraordinary changes in traffic volumes, transits, and toll collection revenues. As per a report by States, the traffic has been dropped by 38% to 63% in the U.S. in March and April.
The pandemic has induced lockdowns which had halted the movement of people and goods in April & May but restrictions have been lifted and are being lifted slowly to bring the economy towards normal growth. Manufacturing units were hampered due to shutdowns and the availability of raw material and labor as transportation and travelling were restrictions. As the electronic toll collection system includes various semiconductor components such as cameras, and most of these components are produced in China and other countries of Asia-Pacific which were badly affected by the pandemic. There are also restrictions on international trade as lockdowns are imposed on the borders of countries. All these have limited the transportation and travelling on road across the globe which has limited the growth of the market.
AFTERMATH OF COVID-19 AND GOVERNMENT ROLE
The pandemic situation created by the coronavirus spread imposed a lockdown in the various countries to initiate physical distancing to lower the spread. COVID-19 outbreak has affected the behavior of the individuals and markets which impacts economies and societies. There is a huge demand for medical equipment, medicines, and processed food industries to meet the demand of the market, so the government is majorly focusing on the preventive steps towards the pandemic and is ensuring that the companies should be more focused on the safety of workers along with continuity in their business to generate revenue. Governments are adopting cashless solutions for electronic toll collections. For instance, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), has been crucial to the emergence of the digital payment ecosystem in India, launching innovative and successful initiatives such as UPI, IMPS, Bharat Bill Pay, and ETC (electronic toll collection) through FASTags.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) has announced that they will be no longer accepting cash and credit cards for its mainline ticket system. And evaluating all tolls electronically via E-ZPass or the PA Turnpike TOLL BY PLATE program as for monitoring vehicles travel at posted speed limits through tolling points. With this PA Turnpike TOLL BY PLATE program, high-speed cameras has installed at toll booths to capture license-plate images as vehicles pass through.
Many companies are coming up with new ideas and strategies to overcome the pandemic situation and help their business to keep running without any disruption.
STRATEGIC DECISIONS FOR MARKET PLAYERS AFTER COVID-19 TO GAIN COMPETITIVE MARKET SHARE
The pandemic has declined the growth of electronic toll collection companies due to travel restrictions. However, not every business is closed during this pandemic, manufacturing facilities, hospitals, airports and warehouses have also been resumed their working and as a result the travel and traffic has been increased. So government and companies are also using advance electronic toll collection systems for keeping eyes on the vehicles passing by tolls. For the tolling industry, the top priority during this pandemic is protecting the health and safety of the toll collectors and customers and for that companies are introducing new solutions to collect toll cashless. For instance,
- In July 2020, Tattile has helped Serbia toll road by installing Vega Basic short-range cameras for automatic number plate recognition (ANPR). Vehicles digitally trigger the camera, which sends the image via TCP connection to the lane controller.
- In July 2020, a California-based company called VeriToll has introduced new app which will use smartphones of drivers GPS to stop erroneous road tolls.
- In May 2020, the Cameroonian government finally signed a contract with the Razel-BEC and Egis Project SA consortium for the construction of the country's first 14 electronic toll booths.
The pandemic has boosted the digital transformation of industries; companies are focusing more on digital platform to interact with their customers. Many electronic toll collection and solutions has been specifically developed and introduced for coping up with this pandemic situation. Also the companies are expanding their services in other regions for increasing their business. For instance,
In October 2020, Kapsch TrafficCom has acquired 35% of interests in the German toll services provider toll tickets GmbH for expanding their tolling services in Europe.
Impact On Demand and Supply Chain
The COVID-19 pandemic has been posing measurable impacts on the global economy. Owing to quarantines situation, social distancing measures and traveling constraints on a broad-scale drives a steep decline in businesses. The pandemic has adversely affected the sales of the companies as the demand has reduced due to several factors such as slowdown of economy.
The supply of electronic toll collection system has been little affected during COVID-19 in many regions globally, as for set up of hardware and software the personnel need to visit to the offices, stores and other places which was totally restricted or limited as per government regulations.
However, the companies are doing its best to meet the increasing demand. Companies are also developing and upgrading their systems specifically for COVID-19 situation.
However, now there is an improvement in the supply chain as most of the facilities and travel restrictions have opened and working in most optimum capacity.
Conclusion
As the COVID-19 prevails the initial period saw a disruption in both supply and demand of the electronic toll collection market. Most of the manufacturing facilities and production were closed bringing down the sales of the electronic toll collection system provider companies.
However, after May, many companies have seen growth in sales as many of the businesses started resuming their work, and therefore the demand for electronic toll collection surged rapidly. Many countries and toll collecting companies have adopted digital transformation to effectively run their business in these tough times. Electronic toll collection system providers are also focusing on bringing new solutions, partnerships, and collaborations to overcome the COVID-19 outbreak.
