Toll Plaza Congestion - NHAI To Draw A Line To Counter Issue

In a bid to put an end to congestion at every traffic toll plaza situated across the nation, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has come up with a rather unique solution.

The autonomous government agency plans to draw a coloured line at every toll lane on the country’s national highways. Once the queue of vehicles in a lane crosses that distinct line, all of them will be allowed to pass through the booth for free.

This plan has been prepared by the NHAI to stop queues from forming at toll plazas due to glitches in reading of FASTags (now mandatory for payment of toll fee), after the Road Transport Ministry started real time monitoring of toll booths and queues in response to reports of congestion.

NHAI officials state they have been directed to ensure that motorists pass through toll booths smoothly to uphold the government’s promise that FASTag will ensure vehicles pass seamlessly through tolls.

The distance at which the coloured line will be marked will differ for every toll plaza since they have differing number of lanes and varied traffic flow.

Moreover, toll operators have been instructed to allow motorists to cross the booth for free if the electronic toll collection system does not work, provided that the motorist has a valid, functional FASTag or any such device with sufficient balance in the linked account.

When vehicles are allowed to pass through due to software glitches, an appropriate zero transaction receipt shall be issued mandatorily for all such transactions.

At present, 90 percent of all toll fee payments are done through FASTag, senior officials of NHAI report after having supervised traffic management at toll booths for the past few days, leaving the government with no excuses to make regarding prevailing toll plaza congestion.