[MDED]

The idea of not collecting toll is brilliant. My daily office commute involves riding on corporation roads, SH and NH and trust me the NH 4 is in a very shabby condition. They keep collecting toll and do nothing with craters on the road and the ever increasing number of accidents.
The first toll from Chennai to Bangalore at Sriperumbudur gets always clogged during long weekend and weekend holidays as vehicles just keep on piling from the Chennai City side and as a last resort the Kanchipuram Police Highway patrol comes to the rescue of road users by removing the boom barrier and ensuring flow of traffic.

[deerhunter]

Originally Posted by Jeash.vk

- Make 'Fastag' mandatory on all commercial/taxi vehicles. I am sure that a significant chunk of the toll traffic is contributed by the above category. Making them adopt Fastag would reduce significant manual effort.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Make FastTag mandatory.

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

FASTag is the way to go, making sure that all new cars come with one should make things a lot easier. New car owners will be forced to use it, other people will follow the suit.

Mandatory Fastag is unfair. Most vehicles registered in India dont use toll roads, so forcing them to pay for Fastag is injustice.

For eg: The whole of Kerala has just 3 Fastag toll booths (one more under construction, and not anymore in the near future). Imagine forcing the new car buyers/taxi operators to pay for Fastag. Many will never ever have to use toll roads.

There is disproportionately high percentage of toll road users in team-bhp (obvious because it is an auto forum). Not so much when we take all the vehicle owners in India.

Originally Posted by Hayek

Put a massive penalty for cash toll payment (start with 2x normal tolls and gradually increase over 6 months to 10x normal tolls);

As of now, cash payment is cheaper for everything. It will be a different story if the service charges for card transactions are waived, but seems unlikely.

Originally Posted by Hayek

finally make furnishing fake addresses to register vehicles a criminal offence punishable with at least 10 years in jail.

Even culpable homicide not amounting to murder has only 10 years max. The govt which brings 10 years for fake addresses will probably never win an election again, so noone will take that risk.

Originally Posted by Hayek

This country is one where 90% of folks are crooks.

Faulty generalisation.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by deerhunter

Mandatory Fastag is unfair. Most vehicles registered in India dont use toll roads, so forcing them to pay for Fastag is injustice.

This is standard practice all over the world. I used Swiss toll roads for 2 days and had to pay CHF38 for a 1 year vignette. Occasional users without Fastag cause congestion and impose massive costs on others. Of course I agree that all toll booths must accept one standard tag

Even culpable homicide not amounting to murder has only 10 years max. The govt which brings 10 years for fake addresses will probably never win an election again, so noone will take that risk.

That's the problem. The VW executives who planned diesel gate will spend the rest of their lives in jail if convicted. And Indians literally get away with murder. Let me end here as we are going off topic

[//M6]

I have one solution which may not reduce the lines at all the gates but can definitely reduce it for a fast tag gates.

Fast tag exclusive gates which are used by non fast tag cars as well should be called as premium gates and should charge a 20% premium for non fast tag cars. Big hoardings from 500 meters will give the driver a chance to move out of that lane and if somebody wants to pay more for quicker access can choose to do so.

Also in my opinion cars should be exempted from tolls all together and should be charged a lump sum amount at the time of registration itself.

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by deerhunter

Mandatory Fastag is unfair. Most vehicles registered in India dont use toll roads, so forcing them to pay for Fastag is injustice.

Just install the TAG in the factory itself and add 350 rupees(100 for tag, 250 for minimum balance; I would suggest increasing the minimum balance) to the ex-showroom prices.

Make more fastag lanes over the next two years and availability of tags for old cars more easy, we'll see a boom in electronic payments from cars.

[RubberSideDown]

I think this has been discussed earlier, but I think photographic toll collection could work. That would be a post-paid model or go-now-pay-later.

High-res cameras just take snaps of the vehicles, along with number plate when passing through tolls, and add to the the vehicles' "payments due" list.
Payment could be made online or in specialized collection booths (manned or unmanned). There one would be shown the date-time-place and the picture. And he/she can pay the dues (privacy issues need to be taken care of).

Enforcement could be a little tricky, but police could pull over vehicles having dues exceeding certain time (say 3 months) or amount (say Rs 1000) or both and issue fines (impounding the vehicle for serious dues)

Yes, there would be infrastructure changes needed at the toll gates and a central system has to be developed for processing, billing and collections. Yes, success would depend on the system's resilience to Indian jugaad tactics.

But no changes are needed on the vehicles, and absolutely no stopping needed.

This works very well in some US states.

[Thilak29]

If every car can be linked to a postpaid or prepaid mobile from where you can deduct/bill the toll amount it would be super easy. A RFID tag or QR code will ease scanning process.

[sanjaykk]

Making Fastag mandatory might be unfair.
Instead Govt. or NHAI could launch pre-paid toll cards in various denominations and make them available in small towns/cities/hotels along the highways. If one has to travel on tolled roads, he/she purchases a pre-paid card of the required denomination before start of the journey.
The tool booths should be equipped with scanners, where the driver can swipe/touch the pre-paid card and the necessary amount gets deducted from the card.

Takes care of the following problems that exist as of today:

• Drivers having to carry change
• Toll booths having to return change
• Time consuming process that involves - stopping vehicle, handing over money, entering vehicle details, printing receipt, returning receipt and change)
• Initial investment cost for procuring Fastag

[greenhorn]

I thought RFID tags were already mandatory for new cars I recall reading about it in 2012/13 and seeing these tags in all new cars. Has it not been made mandatory yet ?

[i74js]

Originally Posted by risga

Electronic contact-less payment mechanisms already exist. Simple Solution is to provide the correct incentives for users to switch.

All electronic toll payment to receive 10% discount and all cash payment to pay 20% extra.

Automatically, users shall make the switch and queues will vanish.

In which condition will a user pay just the fee?
In one you have suggested discount and in other penalty !

[suresh_gs]

IMO, the govt in addition to developing National Highways with toll should also focus on developing State highways without toll.
It is ultimately left to the user as to whether he wants to bypass all towns and villages by going through NH or go through towns and villages through SH.
The drawback I notice on the state highways is the lack of options to break for food. If this aspect is taken care, substantial population will shift to SH thereby reducing the burden on NH.

[gopal.nishant89]

Something i feel about handling this situation:

Not all car owners will have Fastag accessiblity (just the present situation, this will change over time but not sure how long are we looking at from a driver or infrastructure perspective) or not all will be able to have a prepaid cards, however, all car owners and car drivers have one thing, a Driving License, which nowadays is chip enabled, which can store information. Not sure about the technical feasibility but something like a hybrid license, which can be topped up with money along with storing the driver information in the chip, can be directly used to swipe at a toll booth. This will ensure that a technology is built into something that is mandatory for every driver to have with him when behind the wheels and will also be a time saver.

If our country can go through a note ban and then give time for the new currency to come in circulation, we can give time for everyone to upgrade their license to the new Hybrid License. Once upgraded, they will be able to use it without the hassle of having to have another set of card with them and will also ensure the mandatory rule of "driving with license" is implemented.

This will have its own loopholes though. One that i can think of is when there are 2 people in a car, one with and one without the license and the driver does not have the license but the passenger has it. In such a case, the license of the passenger can be used to make the payment. However, there can be a fix for every problem if looked into in detail.

[risga]

Originally Posted by i74js

In which condition will a user pay just the fee?
In one you have suggested discount and in other penalty !

Well, the discount will be for a certain period of time, lets say 1 year. Over time, everybody will switch to electronic. If I am not mistaken, Fastag already provides 10% discount for all transactions upto 31 Mar 2017, but it works only on National Highways.

The Government should aim towards universal acceptance of the card across all Toll booths in India.

Also, I am not in favour of charging an annual lump sum. The concept of toll is user fee based on usage.

Secondly, if a lump sum is charged, roads will be built on political considerations and not on demand. End result would be that the annual lump sum would be too high over time.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

I thought RFID tags were already mandatory for new cars I recall reading about it in 2012/13 and seeing these tags in all new cars. Has it not been made mandatory yet ?

According to the Fastag FAQ, they are still trying to find a way to implement them.

IMHO, they should either ban toll collection or implement Fastag efficiently. I remember during the time when tolls were waived off post demonetization, there were huge time savings during intercity commutes. I still remember going to the Sriperumbudur toll plaza to get the Fastag on our car. It was supposed to be rush hour but the roads were really free! It was a sight to behold! i still remember my dad saying that what we are seeing is national savings!!!

Fastag on the other hand is badly implemented! There is only 1 lane dedicated to it and most toll plazas don't even have one! ICICI bank, which is supposed to be having really good customer service, does a deplorable job! They aren't willing to put their effort into this service! I wonder why they tied up with the govt in the first place!
In order to promote Fastag
1) It should be made compulsory! Come on, we can use this for paying parking charges at malls etc. Effective and efficient use is necessary!
2) The current RFID tag readers need to be upgraded to the high speed processing ones. The current system takes a bit too much time to be called efficient.

My dad was recently telling me about seeing a video wherein a person is protesting at the Thrissur, Kerala toll plaza. His demand? According to the rules, vehicles should be allowed to pass without paying any toll if the there are more than 4 vehicles in a line!!!! I wonder how much of that is true. I'm too lazy to read the fine print

Also, the Supreme Court has recently said that toll collections should be suspended if the roads aren't maintained. Honestly, we should refuse paying tolls to these crooks, especially the one's at the Chennai Bypass, the first two toll booths towards Bangalore etc to name a few! See: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/48703523.cms

Sorry for the long rant!

[nitin_80]

Someone was discussing the below solution with me the other day -

Collect both the entry and exit toll together from each vehicle at the either the entry or exit point of the city and get rid of one toll booth altogether. e.g. get rid of the exit toll at dahisar checknaka (Mumbai exit point) and charge each vehicle Rs.70 instead of Rs.35, entering the city - exit will be free.
Now any vehicle entering the city has to leave some day or the other and it doesn't matter when, since the vehicle has already paid tolls for both ways. This way the traffic jams on one entire side of the highway can be totally eliminated.
Couldn't think of any loophole in this system.