Motorists travelling on Highway 2000 are concerned that there is a discrepancy in the classification of some vehicles. They say some of them are being charged different tolls for the same vehicle on the same day.

One Portmore resident who spoke with The Gleaner recently said on numerous occasions he had paid class one for his 2008 Nissan X-Trail at one toll plaza and class two at another.

The motorist provided The Gleaner with receipts dated January 13 for both the Spanish Town and Portmore toll plazas, where he was charged in two different classifications. He paid $90 for the class two rate in Spanish Town and $100 for class one at the Portmore leg.

Different tolls

In another instance, a driver of a 2007 Montero Sport said she paid $310 for class two in one direction at the Vineyards toll plaza and $230 for class one on the return trip.

According to the operators of Highway 2000, Jamaica Infra-structure Operator (JIO), a vehicle is classified based on its height and length.

Therefore, a class one vehicle carries a height of 1.70 metres or less, while for class two, the vehicle must be higher than 1.70 metres or less than 5.50m. The height of a vehicle is detected by an optical barrier sensor at the toll gate.

However, Ricardo Kerr, adminis-trative supervisor at JIO, said there are a number of instances where the class of a vehicle might come into question.

"There are some vehicles we refer to as borderline vehicles," he told The Gleaner. This means that the vehicle itself might be a specific height, but carry some kind of additional fixture that might increase its classification.

Kerr said as standard practice, a concession is offered to motorists with vehicles carrying roof racks deemed to be an insignificant accessory, as with the 1999-2005 models of the Suzuki Grand Vitara.

Roof rack

"That vehicle has an overall height of 1.689 metres but is detected by our optical barriers as class two because it has a roof rack which, when added, breaches the 1.70-metre mark," he informed. "The toll collectors, however, have the authority to reclassify a vehicle to a higher or lower class in the event of error."

He noted that the Suzuki Grand Vitara and the Nissan X-Trail fall under the class two classification.

The issue of contention with the X-Trail is the addition of the hyper-roof rail. The vehicle has an overall height of 1.68 metres; with rails, it rises to 1.77 metres.

Class 1: 1.70m and less

Class 2: Higher than 1.70 m or less than 5.50 m

Class 3: Higher than 1.70m or longer than 5.50m