Japan’s Toll System Failed for 38 Hours, but Thousands of Drivers Still Paid

Japan is a country of contrasts. On one hand, vending machines selling used underwear, exploitative work conditions, and extreme surveillance have become normalized. On the other, Japanese society values cleanliness and a strict code of conduct that discourages rule-breaking. So, what would you do if you were on a highway, the toll system went down, and the barrier was raised?

In Japan, thousands chose to do what they believed was right: pay anyway.

In short. On April 8, the electronic toll collection system operated by Central Nippon Expressway Company Limited (NEXCO Central) failed. Cars equipped with electronic toll tags couldn’t pay automatically at unmanned booths—which are the norm across the country. Without functioning systems, the barriers didn’t lift.

The outage caused massive traffic jams. The issue began overnight and lasted 38 hours, shutting down 106 toll booths and disrupting traffic on 17 major routes, including those leading to Tokyo, Japan’s economic core.

Hey, pay up. In response, NEXCO sent staff to some toll booths to collect payments manually. But due to the scale of the outage and limited infrastructure, the company couldn’t deploy workers to every location. Instead, it raised the barriers at affected booths—the first time such a failure had occurred since NEXCO was privatized in 2005.

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The decision prevented gridlock during the next day’s rush hour. The company also asked drivers to visit its website and voluntarily pay later. Thousands complied. Motorists calculated what they owed based on their travel distance and submitted payment forms online.

The numbers. Roughly 960,000 vehicles passed through the affected tolls during the blackout. Around 3.8% of those drivers—nearly 36,000 people—voluntarily requested to pay later.

Absolution. The incident exposed the vulnerability of Japan’s digital toll infrastructure. When a failure occurs on this scale, NEXCO said, lifting the barriers is the only realistic option to prevent greater disruption. In a characteristically Japanese gesture, the company’s president publicly apologized and pledged to refund the estimated 1.2 billion yen (about $8 million) lost during the outage.

To ensure fairness, NEXCO said it would reimburse everyone who paid voluntarily. However, it also insisted that drivers should still pay—even if the system fails.

That’s the most contentious part of the story. The failure occurred during a software update and directly caused traffic delays. Yet despite being at fault, NEXCO still expected users to pay for the service.

Image | Choi Hochit (Unsplash)

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