[ethanhunt123]

I am sure in most places in the country, you do have non toll road options but they are either in bad shape or very long.

[Gansan]

^^I don't think so. What are my non-toll options for these routes?

a) Chennai - Pondy

b) Chennai - Trichy (and beyond)

c) Chennai - Bangalore.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by Gansan

^^I don't think so. What are my non-toll options for these routes?

a) Chennai - Pondy

b) Chennai - Trichy (and beyond)

c) Chennai - Bangalore.

Given the huge inefficiencies and the current belief - all major routes are tolled. Why should one get free access on roads. It costs easily 10cr a km for 4 lane roads (the gurgaon expressway was 2000cr for about 27km of roads back in 2007) - hence, 1cr per km a year just to pay the bank interest, forget maintenance and salaries.

In an ideal world, either our taxes pay for it (ask the europeans who paid close to 47% income tax and 17% VAT once upon a while IIRC) or the users pay for it.

or we make quality roads with japanese/world bank kind funding and there is zero corruption. Which is not the case.

I prefer to let the users pay for it than be taxed any more!

/In 2008, 100cr was spent in repairing roads in Gurgaon alone: Rs 99 crore allocated for road repair in Gurgaon - Times Of India All of that completely disappeared next year. When our municipal roads are so shoddy and money suckers - there's unfortunately there's no way that there's any pool left over for development of roads. That's the reality.

[Gansan]

^^That is why you find bullock-carts, share autos and the like on our toll highways. Because there is no other option, they use the roads and hamper speed. And they pay no toll either.

Btw what happens to the road tax levied on vehicles, infrastructure surcharge on fuel etc? The old NH option should have been maintained with these funds and new toll highways should have been created separately.

[sgiitk]

Our rulers made a classic error. All over the world whenever you make a toll orad you leave a viable non-toll option. Drive in France and you will see Bis (for alternative) all over the Autoroutes. Even in the UK where roads are toll free the M- network almost invariably has a parallel A- network.

In India the existing roads were upgraded to Dual Carriageway standards, without a thought to the local traffic, non toll option, etc. This is the reason you see bullock carts, cycles, tractors, tempos and the like (I call them moving chicanes) all over.

[phamilyman]

oh I completely agree. But when we are making such a royal mess of our municipal roads, I don't think the economy can support any "free roads" under the current corruption milieu.

Heck, France etc have piste (IIRC) - cycling tracks that are parallel to highways. Which are in damn neat condition. Here, our toll roads are also never too good (NH8-GGN-Jaipur for instance) forget secondary roads.

And what happens is that in India, the secondary roads are used more heavily by the trucks etc leading to either their deterioration or ultimate tolling.
Jaipur Tonk has far more trucks than Jaipur Kishangarh NH !

[jods]

Originally Posted by dustom_99

Oh I am sure if I was to collect peanuts worth 10k cr,every year,i would end up with godown full of peanuts.
And why did you forget that commercial vehicles pay road tax enough to buy a car,and then they have to shell out nearly same amount each and every year in the name of road permit.
and did you forget that 2 wheelers too pay road tax,herohonda alone sells nearly 1.5lc units every month,and they only own half the market. That makes nearly 3lc two wheelers every month. Nearly 35lc every year. Paying road tax in range of 1000 to 2000 for lower segments.

I think you missed the point. Even after collecting all those taxes, government does not have sufficient money to pursue development of roads by itself.

Originally Posted by dustom_99

I have seen a changing trend in govt offices, if a pvt cmpny went to a sarkari office 20years ago, they would face red tape that could go to moon and back,
But now babus have understood the more you work (more projects ) the more you earn.
Ofcourse the sarkari projects are more on paper and less on ground (and they offer quality that zambia would not be proud of) , and private projects are offered with huge cost escalation and still only a road that would only survive 1 monsoon,so that they can bid for repair tenders.

I don't think you understand how road PPP projects are bid. The competition is fierce. And the amount quoted by developers these days, nearly makes the projects unviable for many years if not for the duration of the concession. While there is corruption, it is more in the EPC contracts in which we don't have to pay toll rather than in PPP projects.

Originally Posted by dustom_99

All govts bullshit us with that modernisation crap,that how they need to develop urgently,hence the extra taxes.
Despite the junta paying up without asking questions,
We still are a nation,with 80cr people living on 20rs a day,16000 villages without electricity, nearly double that without pukka road.
Half of all the villages without any govt medical facility , none of them have a emergency response team for dealing with any natural calamity or act of god.
This list is endless,schools,postoffices,but most of all roads,medical,electricity.
Folks in the villages have sacrificed lot more in making india.

I wonder where have all those taxes gone for past60years?
If india still shows budget defecite, we surely are putting national money in wrong policies. Buying nuclear submarines and globemasters,cwg and f1 should give way to building schools and electric poles.

Not only are your facts wrong, but responding to that would result in deviating from the topic of this thread.

[.sushilkumar]

looks like NHAI has finally heard tanveer;s plea and acted

NHAI readies blueprint on RFID cards tags to help drive through toll gates nationally - The Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Motorists can say goodbye to excruciating queues and road rage at toll gates, save precious fuel that burns in idling engines and avoid the risk of being given soiled or fake currency notes as smart cards will replace clumsy cash payments on highways in the next couple of years.

You will be able to buy a smart card for Rs 100 at a gas station or bank, top it up with cash, and use it like a debit card on highways without even stopping the car. The card will send a radio signal to pay the toll and automatically open any toll gate from Kashmir to Kanyakumari without the trouble of paying awkward amounts like Rs 27 or any human interaction.

Fuel savings for truckers will be phenomenal. A long-haul drive from Delhi to Mumbai is interrupted by some 20 toll gates and the average time at each gate can be as much as 10 minutes. This translates to over three hours of idle run, which is enough to run the truck for another 100 km.

According to an estimate, fuel worth $2-3 billion is wasted on highways and check-posts annually, a significant part of which is due to toll stops.

The National Highways Authority of India is doing its bit to jazz up highway driving. It is planning to set up complexes equipped with amusement parks, ATMs, food courts and fuel stations every 50 km. It also has a buzzing Facebook page, although some of its posts are amusing - this summer it shared tips on driving in foggy weather.

The NHAI now plans to prepare a blueprint for the implementation of Radio Frequency Identification technology-based smart cards in making traffic movement across toll gates hassle free.

"A committee has been constituted under YK Sharma of National Informatics Center constituting members from NHAI and ministry. The recommendations shall be submitted to the government shortly," said an NHAI official.

The RFID scheme is expected to be launched on a few highways before it is gradually expanded.

Apart from saving fuel, the use of tag is expected to cut pollution, decongest toll gates, bring down operating costs for concessionaires and help increase toll collection. An executive at a leading infrastructure company said some toll-collection operations are run by powerful local politicians, who do not pass on all the toll to the infrastructure firm.

The NHAI official added that the move is likely to discourage circulation of fake notes which is usually a problem during cash collection in peak hours with dim lights.

The approximate cost for setting up the infrastructure for RFID on one lane is estimated to be about Rs 10 lakhs. Government is looking at petrol pumps, post offices, banks and other potential sites where tags can be sold.
"The cost of tag starts from Rs 100 and since tags work on a common protocol, same tag will work all over India," said Ashish Bhutani, MD of Omnia Technologies, a leading manufacturers of tags.

[Gansan]

Looks good, but they will take at least a decade to implement it throughout the country, if at all!

[ACM]

Aaah! for a bit of common sense at the Toll Booths.

Will be presenting many many questions out here and also suggesting a few solutions / alternatives to help matters.

Paying toll and waiting in endless queues at toll collection booths are tasks that we are resigned to as part of the routine. Neither do we question the task nor do we attempt to take steps to speed up the process.

Most people who reside & work across the toll booths in cities of Mumbai/Thane/ New Bombay and Delhi/Gurgaon on an average
possibly go to work 22 days a month considering leaves and other eventualities it amounts to 250 trips across the border per year on the smallest scale. Well it might as well be called the border considering the elaborate feel this routine gives us each day - almost like the LA Mexico divide. To top it tolls don't leave our side even on vacations - especially road trips. On an average in road trips transcending multiple cities along the golden quadrilateral we stop at 1 toll both every hour or equivalently in kilometers once per 50 km journey.

Do we or rather does our government - more specifically the administrators - make an attempt at cutting back on the time consumed and fuel spent crawling past these borders of modern India? Taking an average of just 3 minutes and just 0.1 ltrs of fuel spent traveling across these booths amounts to a staggering 25 hours & 50 ltrs of fuel burnt per year (considering 500 trips per year). Yes some of the toll booths are quite fast in their
business and do let us navigate across swiftly am here not referring to these.

Now consider this what if we could just reduce both the time spent and the fuel burnt by half? Would it not be a major saving worth putting our minds to? Yes we all have the same thoughts while navigating through traffic and twiddling our thumbs or drumming away on the steering wheels or door pads of our respective vehicles.

What if we were to charge double the toll just one way? What if we increased the number of lines on the route on which we charge toll and keep the other side free?

What if we were to do away with values other than those ending with 0 as the toll charge? Have we not lost away a lot of time making the Rs. 42, 47, 18, 36, 53 transactions. What if we increment the values charged in years to come just in Rs. 10 increments or for smaller values in a minimum of Rs. 5 increments.

If we to take an example of our busiest national highway NH 8 and consider the amount of time lost behind lines of trucks as they take their time across the toll booth or even in the modernized city toll booths the time lost in passing dedicated monthly toll pass holder booths as those with regular change to be handed out the brains of a 4 year old conveniently miss the prominent 'for monthly pass holders only' sign boards and hold up legitimate traffic while they carry out their transaction. Is it not possible to simply charge those in the wrong lane double to correct their erroneous ways once and for all.

Does time and fuel normally unnecessarily spent when saved not have any value? Is it not worth the effort to think and for a solution to be found?

At first glance it may seem that charging double the toll but only one way would not work. But one does need to realize that 99.99% of vehicles that pass through a booth in one direction - say the free one - will at some time or the other have to return back through the paid one the benefit that they overall spend half the time and burn half the excess wait time fuel in the process. Think twice and you would realize that this will work and this can be reaffirmed as it infact is deployed successfully in a few places round the world so we aren't really reinventing the wheel.

So to sum it up, what am I proposing?
1) Charge Double the Toll one way and keep the other way free. Have more lanes on the side on which toll is charged by increasing the road width at the cost of the other side.
2) Have round figure values for the toll to be charged. The Govt. needs to work that out by putting more effort into the design of the Toll Collection agreements for BOT Projects.
3) Penalize those who use the wrong lane at the toll booths (normal cash payers in Monthly toll lanes, or Trucks in Car lanes) by charging them double or triple the toll.

Am sure there are many more things that we can do to speed up traffic at the Toll Booths in particular so do let the inputs flow in and we can hope that someone in charge of managing these affairs comes across this thread in time.

[jaysmokesleaves]

Answers:
1. Why dont they just do away with the toll ? COme up with annual registrations for all vehicles and include a flat fee for road access. That will save a whole lot of time and eyesore of a toll booth. Anyways we are living in times worse than the british raj. To go anywhere across the country you have to pay toll and solve a whole lot of other problems.
This toll system is is an infringment of basic right of mobility. I dont support the argument that infrastructure development needs money. The govt is already charging taxes for that. All the tax money goes to the scum in the scam. Scam is become like an arbitrary toll tax on the national exchequer.

2.Why is there no toll refund for bad toll roads ? have u seen the flyovers in Bombay ? Its like a crappy joyride in Esselworld. Why no refund for that? After over 60 yrs of independence we still dont know how to make smooth roads!! And one has to pay 40 bucks for this development when they enter or exit the shitty(err.. its city. the words skid on the bad flyover)!

3. Penalizing anyone means another queue for fines!!!!!!!!!!

I think this toll think is outrageous. How comfortably we accept all that is thrust upon us and find ways to justify the nonsense.

Just my 23 rupees worth of POV. Dont ask why 23 Rs...

[parsh]

Really nice thoughts, and at that an appeal to use Common Sense to all. More often we just get queued up wrongly, keep waiting for the clearance ahead, getting feel of what if I was in that fast moving lane, shall I cut through the lane to go ahead or into the fast moving lane, what if people, especially Trucks and heavy vehicles etc really followed the norms going into their specific lanes and not getting into other vehicle lanes.

Your thoughts are quite right to some extent. However a few perspectives come to mind:
1. Double Toll and Toll Booth at only one end: Traffic comes from both directions and the vehicle may join traffic at any point in the road in-between. These vehicle will not be monitored and will go scot free. Also the regular commuters will unnecessarily end up paying double toll without any need. Yes speed and efficiency of getting out of toll booth is important but let the commuters not be burdened for that. Instead an effective tolling mechanism be implemented.

2. Round Figure values: Great Idea. It is often so difficult to shell out a 1/2/3/4 rupees and in turn have to be satisfied with some chocolates from the toll booth at times without any need for them and also not having any time to argue about the same. It will be damn good if this logistics is worked out at all the tolls. Sometimes, I have experienced that the toll booths dont have change and take for granted that we donate them 1/2 rupees that they do not have to be returned back to us and I had to put my foot down to even get that 1/2 rupee because if they don't discount us for 1/2 rupees why should we discount them from correct money change?

3. Penalize wrong lane use: Absolutely, let there be some penalty like double or triple toll.

Also,
4. Pre-Printed Receipts Handed Down: Toll Booths at busy places just keep some toll receipts ready to hand down to commuters. At times there is fraud happening of giving old receipts and commuters not being able to check it properly (as it is the prints on these receipts are so poor that one is not able to identify 100% unless one stops and checks it properly) due to need to hasten up the lane due to lane traffic as well as own haste. If any commuter slows down, the response from the lane and the toll booth guys is just to hurry by hand-signals, verbal shouts and honking from behind by the vehicles in the lane. How sane is that?

[swarnava.m]

Originally Posted by jaysmokesleaves

Just my 23 rupees worth of POV. Dont ask why 23 Rs...

Sorry, but that just makes me extremely curious. Can't help but guess.. Is it that you are posting from your phone and that is what the data charges for this session has been??

[faustus77]

Hi everybody
On 3rd april when driving from Bhavnagar to Bombay there was a 3km jam at the toll naka between Bharuch and Ankleshwar.Though there is a separate lane for cars but to get there was not possible as every nook and cranny was jammed.
I wanted to take the golden bridge over the Narmada river(I advise this in all my posts) but I could not even approach the turning(which was much before the toll booth) to go into the city.
The toll is rs18 only but it would have taken more than an hour to clear so I just checked into a hotel for the night.Next morning with cops regulating the traffic it was not bad.
Regards

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by ACM

Am sure there are many more things that we can do to speed up traffic at the Toll Booths in particular so do let the inputs flow in and we can hope that someone in charge of managing these affairs comes across this thread in time.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...vignettes.html

You are six months too late sir.

as for tolls, i was once told by someone in DGSCL that the NHAI act apparently does not include provisions for challaning cash payers using the tag lane (or suchlike issues). Therefore, the mess we face, daily.