South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Outlook, 2030
The south america electronic toll collection market is segmented into by Type (Transponders/Tag-Based Tolling Systems, Others like Video, ANPR, GNSS), by Technology (RFID, DSRC, Others such as GNSS, ANPR, Mobile Tolling), by Offering (Hardware, Back Office & Other Services), and by Application (Highways, Urban Areas).
- Bonafide Research
- 30-06-2025
- Pages : 81
- Figures : 9
- Tables : 19
- Region : South America
- Category : Semiconductor & Electronics
- Electronics
South America’s ETC market was valued at USD 530 million in 2024, fueled by modernization of highways and smart transport initiatives.
- Historical Period2019-2023
- Base Year2024
- Forecast Period2025-2030
- Market Size (2024) USD 530 Million
- Largest MarketBrazil
- Fastest Market Colombia
- Format
Featured Companies
- 1. Thales Group
- 2. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd
- 3. Indra Sistemas, S.A
- 4. Kapsch TrafficCom AG
- 5. Q-Free ASA
- 6. Neology, Inc.
- More...
Electronic Toll Collection Market Analysis
The South American electric toll collection (ETC) industry is gradually emerging as a vital part of the continent’s transport modernization efforts, driven by a mix of economic development, urban growth, and the imperative to manage increasingly strained road networks. Historically, many South American countries have relied heavily on manual toll collection systems, leading to significant bottlenecks, driver frustration, and operational inefficiencies. However, the last decade has seen a growing recognition of the benefits of electronic tolling faster throughput at toll plazas, reduced vehicle idling and emissions, and more reliable revenue streams for infrastructure maintenance and expansion. Brazil, Chile, and Argentina have led the region’s ETC adoption, rolling out radio frequency identification (RFID)-based and automatic license plate recognition (ALPR)-based systems on major toll corridors. Their examples are inspiring neighboring nations to consider similar upgrades, even though economic and political challenges continue to influence the pace of deployment. According to the research report “South America Electric Toll Collection (ETC) Market Outlook, 2030” published by Bonafide Research, the South America Electric Toll Collection market was valued at USD 530 Million in 2024.A major force behind the ETC industry’s growth in South America is the region’s rapid urbanization and motorization. Cities such as São Paulo, Santiago, and Buenos Aires have some of the highest vehicle densities in the world, contributing to severe congestion and air pollution. By implementing electronic tolling, these urban centers aim to ease traffic at critical choke points, improve journey times, and reduce carbon emissions. Brazil, in particular, has made significant progress with systems like Sem Parar, which allows drivers to pay tolls, parking, and even fuel charges with a single RFID tag, reflecting a trend toward integrated mobility solutions. Similarly, Chile’s TAG system has achieved high levels of penetration, enabling free-flow tolling on Santiago’s urban highways, significantly cutting down delays and promoting smoother mobility. These projects have demonstrated that ETC not only improves road network performance but also supports environmental policy goals by reducing stop-and-go traffic that contributes to greenhouse gases.
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Download SampleMarket Dynamic
Market Drivers • Rapid Urbanization and Increasing Vehicle Density: South America’s large cities, such as São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, are experiencing rapid growth in private vehicle ownership and urbanization. This is overwhelming traditional manual toll plazas, pushing authorities to adopt ETC systems to relieve chronic congestion and keep traffic moving. • Public-Private Partnerships and Concession Models: South America’s reliance on public-private partnerships (PPPs) to finance and operate toll roads is a powerful driver for ETC, as private concessionaires see electronic tolling as essential for maximizing revenue collection, reducing fraud, and improving operational efficiency. Market Challenges • Lack of Regional Standardization and Interoperability: ETC systems in South America are highly fragmented, with differing technologies, payment platforms, and regulations between countries and sometimes even between regions within a country. This creates major headaches for long-distance freight and travelers. • Affordability and Social Acceptance: A significant share of South America’s population has limited income, and there is often resistance to tolling in general, perceived as an unfair burden. Introducing ETC requires careful pricing strategies and public education to avoid backlash and ensure equitable access. Market Trends • Expansion of Mobile and Account-Based Payment Systems: South America is seeing a surge in mobile payment and app-based tolling solutions, which help reach unbanked populations and improve tolling accessibility, making ETC systems more inclusive and user-friendly. • Integration with Broader Mobility Services: There is growing momentum to integrate ETC accounts with other transport services such as parking payments, public transit passes, and even fuel purchases creating unified mobility solutions and a smoother travel experience.
Electronic Toll Collection Segmentation
| By Type | Transponders/Tag Based Tolling Systems | |
| Others (Video, ANPR, GNSS) | ||
| By Technology | RFID | |
| DSRC | ||
| Others (GNSS, ANPR, Mobile Tolling) | ||
| By Offering | Hardware | |
| Back Office and Other Services | ||
| By Application | Highways | |
| Urban Areas | ||
| South America | Brazil | |
| Argentina | ||
| Colombia | ||
Transponder/tag-based tolling leads in South America because it provides a practical, secure, and cost-efficient way to modernize toll systems in a region historically reliant on manual cash collection, helping reduce fraud, congestion, and operational inefficiencies. Many South American countries have long struggled with the limitations of manual toll collection, including high rates of cash handling errors, leakage, corruption, and severe congestion at toll plazas. Transponder-based systems, generally using RFID technology, offer a straightforward and proven method to transition away from cash by enabling contactless, automated tolling that keeps vehicles moving and minimizes human error. These systems are affordable to deploy compared to more advanced camera-based license plate recognition systems, and they adapt well to varied road conditions and vehicle fleets across urban and rural areas. Moreover, RFID transponders are easy for users to install, can be linked with mobile apps or bank accounts for top-ups, and support prepayment models making them accessible even in markets with large unbanked or underbanked populations. By drastically reducing congestion and travel delays while creating transparent, auditable revenue streams, transponder/tag-based tolling aligns with the goals of South American governments and private concessionaires to modernize infrastructure sustainably. RFID is leading in South America’s electric toll collection industry because it offers a simple, affordable, and highly effective solution for replacing outdated cash-based tolling systems while improving revenue collection and reducing congestion. To elaborate, many South American countries historically depended on manual toll booths, which created long queues, fuel wastage, and opportunities for fraud or revenue leakage. RFID technology has emerged as a practical answer to these problems because it is relatively inexpensive to deploy compared to camera-based or satellite-based systems, yet robust enough to handle the region’s rapidly growing vehicle traffic. With RFID tags, drivers can move through toll stations seamlessly and without stopping, dramatically improving throughput on heavily used urban and interurban highways. The ease of distributing and installing RFID tags, along with their compatibility with prepayment systems and mobile top-ups, has made them accessible to a wide socioeconomic spectrum, including unbanked or underbanked populations. Moreover, RFID works reliably even in areas with variable weather conditions and imperfect road infrastructure, ensuring consistent toll collection and reducing operational costs. Concessionaires and governments see RFID as a trusted way to build transparent, auditable, and secure revenue streams while enhancing user satisfaction and modernizing infrastructure. Highways are leading in South America’s electric toll collection industry because they represent the region’s primary long-distance transport arteries, where ETC delivers the highest impact in reducing congestion, improving safety, and securing revenue for critical infrastructure maintenance. Highways in South America play an essential role in connecting major cities, ports, and industrial zones across vast and often rugged landscapes, serving as vital lifelines for both domestic and international trade. Traditional cash-based toll booths on these routes have historically caused severe congestion, long queues, and opportunities for fraud or revenue leakage, undermining road efficiency and increasing transportation costs. By focusing ETC investments on highways first, governments and concessionaires can dramatically improve traffic flow, cut fuel wastage, and reduce travel delays, which is especially important for commercial trucks and intercity buses that depend on predictable travel times. Highways also offer a controlled and predictable environment for deploying ETC hardware like RFID gantries, sensors, and cameras, ensuring accurate toll collection and enforcement while limiting the complexity associated with dense urban street networks. Furthermore, because these corridors carry the highest traffic volumes and generate significant toll revenues, modernizing highway tolling creates a strong financial base for maintaining and expanding critical infrastructure.
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Electronic Toll Collection Market Regional Insights
Brazil is leading in South America’s electric toll collection industry because it has combined widespread concession-based highway management with early adoption of RFID tolling to modernize its vast road network and keep up with surging vehicle demand. Brazil operates one of the most extensive toll road networks in South America, managed heavily through public-private partnerships and concessionaires responsible for maintaining and upgrading highway infrastructure. Facing growing urbanization, booming freight transport, and ever-increasing car ownership, Brazil recognized early the need to move away from slow, cash-based toll booths that created chronic congestion and revenue leakages. As a result, Brazil pioneered RFID-based ETC with systems like Sem Parar, which gave drivers a simple, affordable, and efficient way to bypass queues and pay tolls automatically. The country’s investment in ETC was strongly supported by its large concession sector, eager to maximize revenue collection while improving customer experience. These systems proved highly scalable across Brazil’s diverse geography and road conditions, integrating well with digital payment systems and mobile banking that are increasingly popular among Brazilian consumers. This combination of a large concession-managed highway network, political and private sector support, and user-friendly, reliable RFID technology has made Brazil the clear front-runner in South America’s electric toll collection market, setting an example for neighboring countries to modernize their own tolling systems.
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Companies Mentioned
- Thales Group
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd
- Indra Sistemas, S.A
- Kapsch TrafficCom AG
- Q-Free ASA
- Neology, Inc.
- Star Systems International Ltd.
- Tecsidel S.A.
Table of Contents
- 1. Executive Summary
- 2. Market Dynamics
- 2.1. Market Drivers & Opportunities
- 2.2. Market Restraints & Challenges
- 2.3. Market Trends
- 2.3.1. XXXX
- 2.3.2. XXXX
- 2.3.3. XXXX
- 2.3.4. XXXX
- 2.3.5. XXXX
- 2.4. Supply chain Analysis
- 2.5. Policy & Regulatory Framework
- 2.6. Industry Experts Views
- 3. Research Methodology
- 3.1. Secondary Research
- 3.2. Primary Data Collection
- 3.3. Market Formation & Validation
- 3.4. Report Writing, Quality Check & Delivery
- 4. Market Structure
- 4.1. Market Considerate
- 4.2. Assumptions
- 4.3. Limitations
- 4.4. Abbreviations
- 4.5. Sources
- 4.6. Definitions
- 5. Economic /Demographic Snapshot
- 6. South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Outlook
- 6.1. Market Size By Value
- 6.2. Market Share By Country
- 6.3. Market Size and Forecast, By Type
- 6.4. Market Size and Forecast, By Technology
- 6.5. Market Size and Forecast, By Offering
- 6.6. Market Size and Forecast, By Application
- 6.7. Brazil Electronic Toll Collection Market Outlook
- 6.7.1. Market Size by Value
- 6.7.2. Market Size and Forecast By Type
- 6.7.3. Market Size and Forecast By Technology
- 6.7.4. Market Size and Forecast By Application
- 6.8. Argentina Electronic Toll Collection Market Outlook
- 6.8.1. Market Size by Value
- 6.8.2. Market Size and Forecast By Type
- 6.8.3. Market Size and Forecast By Technology
- 6.8.4. Market Size and Forecast By Application
- 6.9. Colombia Electronic Toll Collection Market Outlook
- 6.9.1. Market Size by Value
- 6.9.2. Market Size and Forecast By Type
- 6.9.3. Market Size and Forecast By Technology
- 6.9.4. Market Size and Forecast By Application
- 7. Competitive Landscape
- 7.1. Competitive Dashboard
- 7.2. Business Strategies Adopted by Key Players
- 7.3. Key Players Market Positioning Matrix
- 7.4. Porter's Five Forces
- 7.5. Company Profile
- 7.5.1. Kapsch TrafficCom AG
- 7.5.1.1. Company Snapshot
- 7.5.1.2. Company Overview
- 7.5.1.3. Financial Highlights
- 7.5.1.4. Geographic Insights
- 7.5.1.5. Business Segment & Performance
- 7.5.1.6. Product Portfolio
- 7.5.1.7. Key Executives
- 7.5.1.8. Strategic Moves & Developments
- 7.5.2. Neology, Inc.
- 7.5.3. Thales S.A.
- 7.5.4. Indra Sistemas S.A.
- 7.5.5. Star Systems International Ltd.
- 7.5.6. Tecsidel S.A.
- 7.5.7. Q-Free ASA
- 7.5.8. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
- 8. Strategic Recommendations
- 9. Annexure
- 9.1. FAQ`s
- 9.2. Notes
- 9.3. Related Reports
- 10. Disclaimer
Table 2: Influencing Factors for Electronic Toll Collection Market, 2024
Table 3: Top 10 Counties Economic Snapshot 2022
Table 4: Economic Snapshot of Other Prominent Countries 2022
Table 5: Average Exchange Rates for Converting Foreign Currencies into U.S. Dollars
Table 6: South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast, By Type (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 7: South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast, By Technology (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 8: South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast, By Offering (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 9: South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast, By Application (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 10: Brazil Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Type (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 11: Brazil Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Technology (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 12: Brazil Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Application (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 13: Argentina Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Type (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 14: Argentina Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Technology (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 15: Argentina Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Application (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 16: Colombia Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Type (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 17: Colombia Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Technology (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 18: Colombia Electronic Toll Collection Market Size and Forecast By Application (2019 to 2030F) (In USD Million)
Table 19: Competitive Dashboard of top 5 players, 2024
Figure 2: Market attractiveness Index, By Region 2030
Figure 3: Market attractiveness Index, By Segment 2030
Figure 4: South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Size By Value (2019, 2024 & 2030F) (in USD Million)
Figure 5: South America Electronic Toll Collection Market Share By Country (2024)
Figure 6: Brazil Electronic Toll Collection Market Size By Value (2019, 2024 & 2030F) (in USD Million)
Figure 7: Argentina Electronic Toll Collection Market Size By Value (2019, 2024 & 2030F) (in USD Million)
Figure 8: Colombia Electronic Toll Collection Market Size By Value (2019, 2024 & 2030F) (in USD Million)
Figure 9: Porter's Five Forces of Global Electronic Toll Collection Market
Electronic Toll Collection Market Research FAQs
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