Under the new cooperation program, executives of Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co. (FETC) said two days at the earliest after completing the online application through the "ibon" machine at a 7-Eleven store, a customer may pick up the machine at the same store.

The more-than-4,700 7-Eleven convenience stores around Taiwan now also sell the ETC cards and allow balance checks.

The stores in the greater Taipei area, including Keelung City, plus those in Yilan and Hualien districts provide the extra service of letting customers add new cash to their value-stored ETC cards.

This service will be expanded islandwide after April 17.

Customers who used to get such services at the 24 FETC service centers now can have the much more convenient services at the ubiquitous stores throughout the island, according to FETC executives.

People using such new services will be given a token gift of a bottle of drinking water or a pack of tissues between the period of April 9 to May 6. But those using the "ibon" machines to settle overdue payment of the toll fees will have to pay a service charge of NT$8.

Meanwhile, FETC announced a hike of the service charge for overdue payment of the toll fee to NT$50 from the present NT$40 starting on May 1.

The price hike come from the change in the regulations requiring the delivery of mail notifying overdue payments to customers with the "registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt," also known as "doubly registered mail."

The mail cost is higher than the old practice of sending the notices with the ordinary registered mail.

In addition to 7-Eleven stores, customers may also settle the overdue payment through the banks' automated teller machines (ATM) and other convenient store chains like Family Mart, Hi-Life, and OK (or Circle K).

FETC executives said vehicles fitted with the OBUs in Taiwan now total of 550,000. They make and average of 430,000 runs through the ETC toll gates per day without having to make stops, accounting for over 31 percent of the 1.37 million cars running on the freeway systems everyday. They expect the new services in cooperation with the 24-hour 7-Eleven convenience stores will better serve customers and induce more people to use the fast-track ETC system.