[sarathlal]

In order to ensure minimal waiting time at the toll plazas, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued guidelines to ensure service time of not more than 10 seconds per vehicle even at peak hours at the toll plazas on the National Highways.

The new set of guidelines will also ensure seamless flow of traffic at the toll plazas by not allowing vehicles to queue up more than 100 metres. If there is 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 meters from the toll booth.

For this purpose, a yellow line at a distance of 100 meters from toll booth will be marked in each toll lane. This is to inculcate further sense of accountability in toll plaza operators.

Source: NHAI press release (Attached) NHAI Press release.pdf

[Raghu M]

These are rules and only on paper. No one at the toll gate follows these. They just simply stop your vehicle and ensure the payment is done. The only way the hassles at tollgates will be gone is to have no tollgates at all. Have radars that can scan the FASTag and deduct money. Manual system of toll collection can never achieve what has been mentioned in the news article.

[RedTerrano]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

In order to ensure minimal waiting time at the toll plazas, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued guidelines to ensure service time of not more than 10 seconds per vehicle even at peak hours at the toll plazas on the National Highways.

A nonsense idea, like keeping a dog and barking yourself.
Once the FasTags were made mandatory, there is absolutely zero reason to retain the toll plazas. They should be replaced by sensors which identify scan and debit. If the scanners don't work as expected, tough luck. Get them repaired. Why ask the commuters to queue up?
Has the Govt forgotten the FasTags were introduced to save commuters time and money in the first place?

[vinu_h]

We only respond to threats and penalties. So unless the toll operators are penalised, this will never work.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by Raghu M

These are rules and only on paper. No one at the toll gate follows these. They just simply stop your vehicle and ensure the payment is done. The only way the hassles at tollgates will be gone is to have no tollgates at all. Have radars that can scan the FASTag and deduct money. Manual system of toll collection can never achieve what has been mentioned in the news article.

These NHAI guys are good at keeping themselves in the news, nothing about the toll plaza has improved in all these years. The fastag had led to more employees lazing around than before. Last time I traveled on the Cochin- Salem stretch, I wasted 15 minutes at the toll booths (yes, I timed it). The maximum number of vehicles before me was 3, good luck with 10 seconds, they'll be lucky to 1 a minute during peak traffic.

[null]

If they can enforce this rule in Bangalore on NH4, At the Parle factory toll & the Nelamangala/Tumkur road 1st toll, then we can accept that their rules indeed work!

Also, in addition to 10 seconds service time per vehicle, they should also define the queue wait time as well since 10 sec * 20 vehicles (cars + trucks/buses to make up 100 meters) = 200 sec wait time does not make any sense in our country.

Instead of all this, they should just let the cars pass through without any boom bar. Put speed regulators (speed breakers) to ensure the vehicles don't rip through the toll lane. And, defaulters (without valid Fastag or no Fastag) should be fined electronically. It is not difficult to devise a system to detect cars which default. If the car has a valid tag & adequate balance, the fault is on the toll booth end where it failed to scan properly. If the car does not have a valid tag (or without adequate balance), then they should issue a ticket to the erring car!

[Malyaj]

The provision to allow of opening of toll barrier in case of a certain queue length has always existed in the concession agreements. It is never enforced because that requires the presence of an NHAI person at site. Expecting self regulation to work in our country is a bit too much. Moreover the toll plaza manager would rather incur the wrath of an NHAI inspector than have his head chewed off by his CEO for allowing loss of toll revenue.

On so many occasions I have seen that even Fastag lanes are shut and all traffic is accumulated in 60-70% of the lanes. This defeats the very purpose of automation. How difficult is it to make sure that sensors in all lanes are working and traffic gets evenly distributed?

[am1m]

Great plan on paper. Implementation...

And how about asking toll operators to stop entertaining every tom, dick, and harry when they ask for an exception to the toll?! How many times I've been stuck behind some idiot who will spend 15 mins flashing some random ID card or the other, arguing with the toll operator and trying to get a toll exception. Local contractor, local government authority, just a local- everyone thinks they are entitled to use a toll road and not pay for it! The implementation (however shoddy) of FastTag has reduced this to some extent, those idiots don't usually go in to the FastTag lane to start their 'discussions'.

[mvadg]

Need to remove humans from the equation. The moment there is a human involved, there are vested interests that are served by disrupting the system.

[TrackDay]

Another day another rule to implement. I wonder if those in the higher ups have any real world idea of what is happening at these toll booths. I am pretty sure no one is going to allow certain number of vehicles to pass freely just because the line queue is long. Also imagine if the barricade comes down after a great many vehicles have passed and the next guy to pay is a well connected person !

Originally Posted by am1m

How many times I've been stuck behind some idiot who will spend 15 mins flashing some random ID card or the other, arguing with the toll operator and trying to get a toll exception.....
.......of FastTag has reduced this to some extent, those idiots don't usually go in to the FastTag lane to start their 'discussions'.

I too have faced this multiple times and that when it is clearly marked as Fastag lane In one instance I had to reverse my car to let the car in front reverse because it didn't have a fastag.

[haisaikat]

NH Tolls cannot be unmanned simply because
1. Fastags scanners several times malfunction requiring manual scans using hand helds
2. Several times people with fastags enter fastag lanes with zero balance resulting in manual payment collection

For the other case of the 100 metres yellow line, I doubt if the enforcement can be made rigid especially in toll plazas that are far away from cities in the middle of nowhere, unless NHAI can monitor that using CCTV cameras and raise alerts later on. Otherwise some cars will surely purposefully crowd in 1-2 lanes making it a pseudo crisis forcing clearing of lanes faster without payment.

But like all other new rules I will welcome this one, hoping it will make our lives easier, its a wait and watch, as always.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by haisaikat

NH Tolls cannot be unmanned simply because
1. Fastags scanners several times malfunction requiring manual scans using hand helds
2. Several times people with fastags enter fastag lanes with zero balance resulting in manual payment collection

These are not insurmountable technical problems. In fact, they are relatively simple to fix. The government can collect more money, save everybody a lot of time and streamline everything.

Scan Fastag multiple times at the entry line, all scanners cannot fail at the same time. Capture license plates and a photo of the driver - the government already collects plenty of unnecessary data about us, some more won't hurt us. If anyone enters without adequate balance, debit it from the associated bank account with a hefty penalty. There are not that many vehicles, and I'm sure it is easier than vaccinating a billion people.

[Indian2003]

I am blessed with toll roads. Thousands of them. They are not manned and you can just drive through and you get a bill in the post.

To avoid that and get a discount same time, I use this small chip that is fitted to the windscreen. Every month my bank account is charged automatically. This chip can be used in Sweden and Denmark and ferries.

I saw the Malaysian system. It looks like a calculator of the 70s and you need to pick it up and point it towards the sensor at every toll booth. It needs to be charged evey time it runs out of funds.

[hridaygandhi]

Although the rule has existed since a long time, I think FastTag will make implementation possible.

I travel fairly frequently between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, and my experience with the toll plazas has been fairly good. After FastTag implementation, mostly there are not more than 1-2 cars per toll booth ahead which also pass quickly.

But let me particularly narrate my experiences with the Kamrej Toll Plaza (Surat) on the NH 48 (erstwhile NH 8). On the numerous instances that I have passed through this one, they simply let you drive past, no barricades, no rumble strips. You naturally slow down a little because it's a toll booth, but they never ask you to stop. And the amount has been duly deducted from my FastTag account every time.

That makes me wonder, if this toll booth can do it, why can't others? That gives me hope, that sooner or later, most major toll booths at least will be like this one. It is okay if we have to slow down a little, but as long as we don't have to come to a complete halt, this will save a lot of fuel and time.

[rajshenoy]

Classic case of good intent but lack of compliance among the public.

How many times do we see people stuck at the toll arguing, in reality they might have forgotten to recharge their fastag. Eventually they get what they wanted, pay in cash.

This pattern is seen everywhere. We blame govt and leaders for pandemic without complying with the protocols.

Coming back to tolls, I think one way is to have the system detect invalid fastags before the chock point and redirecting them. This will benefit the majority of us who do routine homework and comply.