KEY STORY
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In order to ensure smooth and quick passage of vehicles at the toll plazas, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued guidelines to ensure no more than 10 seconds of service time per vehicle even during peak hours at toll plazas to ensure minimal waiting time.
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The NHAI said as social distancing has become the new norm, commuters are increasingly looking at FASTag as a toll payment option as it nullifies the chances of any human contact between the drivers and the toll operators.
Let’s take a look at NHAI’s new guidelines:
1) The new guidelines aim to minimise waiting time at toll plazas and ensure service time of not more than 10 seconds per vehicle even during peak hours at the toll plazas on the National Highways.
2) The new guidelines will also ensure seamless flow of traffic at the toll plazas by not allowing vehicles to queue up more than 100 metres.
3) Although, at most of the toll plazas, there is no waiting time after mandatory 100% Fastag, even then if there is a queue of waiting vehicles of more than 100 metres due to some reason, the vehicles will be allowed to pass without paying toll till the queue comes within 100 metres from the toll booth.
4) A yellow line at a distance of 100 metres from the toll booth will be marked in each toll lane.
5) This is to inculcate a further sense of accountability in toll plaza operators.
Since NHAI has successfully transitioned to 100% cashless tolling from the middle of February 2021, the overall FASTtag penetration at NHAI Toll Plazas has reached 96% and stands at 99% at many toll plazas.
CONCLUSION
Keeping in view the growing Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) penetration in the country, it has been emphasized to have a new design and construct the upcoming toll plazas as per traffic projections for the next 10 years to have an efficient toll collection system.
The constant growth and adoption of FASTag by the highway users is encouraging and has helped to bring more efficiency in toll operations.
