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eliyanto, 42, has been keeping tollgates for 20 years, but soon he may lose his job.

The government planned to make all tollgates machine-operated by 2018 as part of a broader plan for a cashless society that is hoped to make the economy more efficient.

But while the plan is lauded by many, tollgate keepers such as Heliyanto are concerned about their jobs as all tollgates will be run by unmanned automated toll booths (GTO).

“I think all toll road workers all over Indonesia must be worried because toll road [gate] automation might lead to us being fired,” he said on Thursday.

Indeed so, the Indonesian Workers Union Association (ASPEK) along with Indonesian Toll Road Workers Alliance (APJATSI) raised the issue to the public in a recent press briefing.

The association argued that while it might benefit toll road companies, the program was deemed unfit to be applied to Indonesia, with more than 7.6 million people still unemployed in 2015, according to Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data.

ASPEK head Mirah Sumirat stated that the association demanded for the cancellation of the plan altogether, as it also doubted the ratio between the available positions within the companies and the number of workers, estimated at 20,000 workers, who might be fired with the program, especially as they have only been trained for operating the gates and not for other skills.

“It just won’t work,” she said.

Popularizing e-payment is also considered crucial to reducing congestion and long queues at tollgates as electronic transactions only take three seconds compared to eight seconds for manual transactions.

Indonesia Toll Road Authority (BPJT) is also currently processing a ministerial regulation draft on the matter, which will include a roadmap toward cashless transactions on toll roads.

The ministerial regulation is also expected to give a legal basis to instruct the operators to have the facilities for e-payment all over its respective toll road gates.

On the program’s impact toward the workers, BPJT head Herry Trisaputra Zuna said the agency had warned toll road operators to address the problem.

“They will have to manage not letting them go. But the workers also cannot insist in keeping the manual system,” he said.

He was more upbeat on the transfer of the toll road gate workers to other areas of work within the company, stating that with the current rapid toll road development, as the government aims to build additional 1,000 kilometer (km) of toll road by 2019, there will be need for manpower in various divisions.

State toll road operator Jasa Marga human resource director Christantio Prihambodo stated that the company had managed not to fire any of its 4,200 workers working in toll booths with its ongoing tollgate automation program.

Jasa Marga has turned 40 percent of its total more than 1,000 tollbooths into GTO. The percentage is expected to jump to 50 percent this year.

“We always do an improvement of competency or transfer to other tasks,” he said.

He also maintained that with new toll roads under construction, the company still needed a greater workforce to run the toll road gates and to inspect and operate the e-transaction machines. It could also transfer the workers to construction services and the facilities maintenance division, he said.

“But I have to ask again, should we really halt technological improvements?” Christantio added.