The new Angostura toll plaza on Chile’s Pan-American Highway comes into operation

The new Angostura toll plaza came into operation at midnight on Thursday, 1st September 2016. This new toll plaza is part of an extension project being carried out by Ferrovial Agroman Chile to add a third lane between kilometres 51 and 58 of Route 5 South, on the Pan-American highway. It is the largest and most moder in the country. This toll plaza is located at kilometre 54, on the Santiago-Talca stretch, and has a total of 25 booths, compared to only 10 in the old facilities. Of these, 19 booths are for manual payment, and six for electronic charging. The new infrastructure will represent an increase in the highway’s capacity, from the 2,800 vehicles per hour it was handling currently, to 5,000 vehicles per hour, thus significantly improving quality standards. It is the largest and most modern toll plaza of all intercity highway routes in Chile. The facilities include a new customer services corporate building. This building has an area of 2,600 m² over three levels, with 30 offices for providing call centre services, customer service, parking services, hygiene services, handling of suggestions and complaints, information on toll costs, and centralised video camera surveillance. The project covers construction of a third lane for extension and improvement of the route on the stretch running from km 51 to km 58, including improvements in geometric design. Changes to the layout and the widening of the highway as a result of the additional lane on each carriageway require some structures to be changed, and some new ones built. In all, the new layout required excavating 1,500,000 m³ of rock, with cuts of up to 80 metres high into the mountainside.