[AutoNoob]

<Original news article is in Hindi, I have translated it with help from Google>

Yamuna Expressway will have to be crossed in 99 minutes (cars) -124 minutes (heavy vehicles), if you take less time then you will be fined

Source: News18

For time monitoring, 'Time Booths' will be installed on the Jewar and Agra portions of the expressway.

According to the rules, now the car rider will have to complete his journey on Yamuna Expressway in 99 minutes i.e. 1 hour 39 minutes. If the journey is completed in less than this time then fine will be imposed.

For heavy vehicles, 124 minutes means 2 hours 4 minutes.

earlier, to check the speed of vehicles, the distance between two tolls was done on the basis of how much time was completed. Now if the car driver has completed the journey of the expressway before 99 minutes and the heavy vehicle driver before 124 minutes, then the online challan will be deducted.

Authorities have calculated exact time for 165km stretch @ 100kmph; so, if one gets stuck at tolls for considerable time, that person is allowed use imagination.

One more step taken by authorities; though not sure how much change will this bring in drivers' behaviour.

Accidental car statues to be installed on the expressway

Accidents happen when the car is driven at a speed more than the prescribed. This is the condition of the car in case of an accident.

The Yamuna Expressway Authority wants to give a similar message by installing a car statue on the Yamuna Expressway...

[Agarwal_Aayush]

I do not see anyone benefitting here other than the restaurant and café owners just after the toll.
People will stop at the cafe's just to kill time in order to increase the time between the two tolls and blast there cars to glory. It is gonna remain the same as it has been till now until and unless people realize that speed thrills but kills. Even though intention is good but execution is very poor IMO.

Yes the "Accidental car statues" can deter few drivers but that's it, most of them will still drive at very high speeds.

[akash_v12]

It's simple. The idea hasn't ever made any sense to me. It has been supposedly been implemented in the Mumbai-Pune Expressway too.

According to the rule, you cannot cross this part of the expressway between 2 toll booths (Khalapur & Talegaon) in less than 36 minutes. It does show 1 hour 7 minutes right now, but that's owning to heavy traffic. In the number of times we've done this stretch, we averaged around 34 minutes of drive-time, so it is definitely achievable in under 36 minutes whilst maintaining speeds according to speed limits.

But here's the flaw

1. From the Mumbai side, as you come towards Pune, there is a huge rest stop where most people stop, since it's got every single food joint you could possibly name and reliable IIRC, COCO petrol bunks.

2. From the Pune side, there's the two plazas just before the toll booth, again having literally every joint in the world.

So, how does it matter if a guy goes way over the speed limit and kills time at the rest stops or another guy goes at the actual assumed speed and make it out at 36mins? It's going to be one and the same.

The only possible option to actually implement speed limits are by highway patrolling & using speed-cams. Not using silly techniques like the one above.

[GTO]

They do the same thing on the Mumbai-Pune expressway and it was mighty effective. Overnight, you'd see 99% of vehicles cruising at 90 - 100 kmph. Of late though, there have been many speeding cameras come up. The way they flash when capturing a violator is more than enough to deter everyone else. That, and of course, the 1000 buck fine.

IMHO, this will be a stop-gap measure until they put up speeding cameras all over the Yamuna Expressway.

[wildsdi5530]

With more and more people preferring private transport rather than public transport for the very obvious advantages, one of the most important is the time saved.

Flying to Chennai from Bangalore will take 2 hrs from Bangalore to the airport, 20 mins flying time and 20 mins into Chennai. Coming to Trains it will take at least 6 hrs of travel time not including in city travel. By car door to door should take 4-5 hrs for the 300 kms.

I know the govt is really trying to speed up travel by introducing Bullet trains and Hyper loops. This will definitely boost their coffers.

But ridership in these bullet trains and in airplanes will depend on reduction of dependence on private vehicles. While the fantastic rise in fuel prices is surely discouraging the private vehicles, it was still making financial sense. Hence the increased tolls on all roads.

When this didn't promote airline and train travel, even the bottlenecks at toll gates failed to increase travel time sufficiently to deter people from driving. Hence the unreasonable speed limits.

30kmh Speed limits on deserted stretches, monster speed humps on highways, Z - barricades, speed traps, are all just to promote public transport. Ever notice how taxis and commercial vehicles are exempt from traffic violations?

But this is a wasted effort. For a generation previously owning and driving a car was the ultimate aspiration. Back in the 1940 very few people knew how to drive. Youngsters nowadays seem to have no interest in cars. I guess by 2040 very few people will know how to drive.

[harry10]

Originally Posted by GTO

IMHO, this will be a stop-gap measure until they put up speeding cameras all over the Yamuna Expressway.

I don't get it what's stopping Govt. to do that. Delhi must be the most policed place in respect to speed cams and CCTV cameras all over. Then why can't they have it installed on Yamuna expressway. When I last did this stretch a couple of years back people were literally speeding like lunatics. I had the cruise control set at 90 and I was feeling like standing still and everyone is zooming past me. In fact on return journey we came back from the Palwal highway as my family wasn't comfortable driving around these speed racers.

[rahulskumar]

I would have rather loved to hear minimum speed limit on Indian roads. Really fed up of seeing slow moving private cars especially on single lane highways

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by rahulskumar

I would have rather loved to hear minimum speed limit on Indian roads. Really fed up of seeing slow moving private cars especially on single lane highways

True. Access controlled expressways should all come with an enforced minimum speed limit. Will go a long way in improving congestion and lane discipline.

[narayans80]

165 km in 99 minutes is 100 kmph average, not indicated speed of 100 kmph.

Just to put things in perspective:

• Setting cruise at posted limit of 99-100 km/h. It roughly takes about 60-65 minutes to get from Bombay to Vijayawada exit (78 km). That's roughly about 72-75 km/h average
• Driving at 100-118 km/h on speedo between Tumkur and Mysore Cafe (past Chitradurga) yielded about 88 km/h.

This would mean, one has to hammer on 120-140 km/h ballpark consistently to average 100 km/h over such a distance.

Are we really complaining a 100 kmph average in India?

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by harry10

I don't get it what's stopping Govt. to do that. Delhi must be the most policed place in respect to speed cams and CCTV cameras all over. Then why can't they have it installed on Yamuna expressway.

IIRC, there are around 7~8 speedcams on each side of Expressway. In recent times, I find few cars really overspeeding. Infact buses tend to overspeed, private as well as state owned.

This time based challan is added checkpoint. Such measures can reduce the instances of overspeeding, but can't stop morons.

[SS-Traveller]

I wonder which official thinks up this sort of solution to solve speeding problems?

So I can drive at, say, 200 kmph for 20 minutes = 66.6 km (round off to 65 km).

Then for the next 100 km I can drive at 75 kmph (justifiably sticking to the right lane, because all Indians do that, and getting excellent FE), to effectively cover the distance of 165 km in 100 minutes.

Voilà, no fine.

Yet, for all of those 100 minutes, I am a menace to each and every other driver on that road, whether while rocketing past at 200 kmph, or dawdling along on the 100+ kmph overtaking lane at 75 kmph.

[ACM]

If there are Bio Breaks, Gas Pumps, and Food Outlets to Chill along the route, this will not work.

A guy in a real hurry for whatever life-threatening reason will hurry irrespective of the fine.

The guys speeding for fun, will generally halt at a food joint to chill out.

The same occurs on the Mumbai Pune Expressway. Here we even know the location of some of the speed cams located below the overbridges.

The Rs. 1000 pictures can look quite cool and Sporty even at 110 kmph, no need to go at 200.

While the laws of physics do not change, I believe the way out to a safer regime is to permit speeds as per the Star rating of the cars. Atleast people will switch to safer cars to go faster.

Speed rating of tyres should also be a factor. Like we have PUC ratings updated online, we must have permitted speed ratings similarly updated considering all factors, like age, condition of tyres, prior insurance claims etc.

Secondly all cars must have centrally managed GPS devices that simply trigger an alarm with the authorities on going above say 140 for 5 mins continuously. And Voila you get an e-challan.

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

I wonder which official thinks up this sort of solution to solve speeding problems?

I feel more than thought, it's the limitation of technology and manpower that leads to such half-baked measures. However, these are better than not having any.

With penetration of GPS enabled telematics, authorities may come up with another solution. But then it would be infringing on privacy.

for the next 100 km I can drive at 75 kmph (justifiably sticking to the right lane, because all Indians do that, and getting excellent FE)

True. There are both types of morons. As Shreyans_Jain mentioned, lane wise minimum limit is need of the day. How to enforce it, that's another question.

Fortunately, on this particular expressway, the heavy vehicles and slow moving cars mostly stay on middle and left most lane. But same is not true for other expressways in the region.

[vinu_h]

Is this the 1st instance of ML being used to penalise vehicles in India ? Love it. This is is a step in the right direction. Authorities in the UK do something similar.

[DVK]

I remember something similar being in place on the Tirupati ghat road (
downhill from Tirumala). Our cab driver then sped up till the final check point and then simply switched off the engine on the side of the road for a while so that the minimum time had elapsed. If I remember correctly, this was more than 6 years ago. Someone who remembers this better can maybe chime in on this?
I did not see any similar arrangement on a trip last year though. Maybe the authorities had caught on to it and decided to do it away with.

If they really want to implement average based challans, it makes sense to have additional detection points on the highway before and after the zoned points of interest such as rest stops. This combined with the ones at the two ends would make it easier to estimate the true average speed.