Acceptance of RFID Toll Payment Method by Highway Users in Malaysia

Abstract

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a wireless tracking technology for data identification, capturing and analysis. It is used in numerous business applications to overcome the drawback of collecting data manually, such as data errors, time delay and high labour cost. RFID was introduced as an alternate toll charge payment method in Malaysia highways in 2018, and the government of Malaysia aims for a full implementation by end 2023. However, up to January 2022, only 10% of highway users switched to RFID. Hence, this study aims to assess highway users’ intention level on using RFID as toll payment mode. Additionally, the study also aims to evaluate the causal relationship between users’ perception on RFID payment mode and users’ intention to use RFID. The study views users’ perception based on modified TAM theory, which consist of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived culture’s influence and perceived privacy and security. The study is quantitative based, structured questionnaire adopted from prior studies was distributed to the targeted population, which is class 1 highway users, and 176 responded. Data collected is normally distributed and statistically reliable. Hence, data was processed further with descriptive analysis and Pearson correlation test to address the research objectives. Finding from the research reveals that users’ intention to migrate to RFID payment mode is low, which suggested additional effort is required for the full implementation of RFID by end 2023. Additionally. Result of correlation test discloses that users’ perception on the ease of use and the usefulness are significantly associated with the intention to use RFID. However, the correlation of perceived culture’s influence, privacy and security with intention is weak and insignificant. The finding implies that highway operator should focus on addressing users’ anxieties and hesitation of using RFID in order to encourage more users to migrate to RFID. Additionally, the study also contributes to the domain new technology acceptance by the introduction of users’ acceptance model for RFID based on modified TAM theory.