[panamera13]

Originally Posted by Desi Dybuk

In my previous life, I was involved in the process to setup Ez Tag system for HCTRA (Harris County Toll Road Authority) in Houston, TX. Evem 15-16 years ago, they had implemented the NFC tag system like our Fastag. The tag readers were mounted on masts on freeways as well as toll booths. After a bit of calibration, there were not much issues with the tags being read. And to this day, it works flawlessly. What we learnt that there was an art to calibration of the reader & the placement.

Being a current HCTRA customer, I say thx for a good implementation of your project.

The EZtag is a simple "sticker" you place on the windscreen and it works flawlessly (they did a test at 200 mph) when you cross the toll booth. A white light flashes and your movement is recorded.

We also use the same EZtag to enter our gated community as it's connected with our community gate access. Why fix something if it ain't broken. Gadkari seems to be keen on tech but probably doesn't understand the concept of "stabilizing existing state" and "Proof of concept". Gadkari needs to focus on fixing fasttag usage mess first.

[GeeTee TSI]

I will take a slightly different view here.

For one, I think it calls for foresight to identify a current problem (queues at toll plazas) and a vision for a future state (drive by without stopping, no toll plazas)

Secondly, instead of the government being inward looking and not looking ahead (as is usually the case), here you have vehicle owners refusing to embrace fastag (the remaining minority that is) which I can't for the life of me understand. Who gave the right for a certain section to slow down the rest of us ?!

I feel sticking to status quo is the easiest thing to do - be happy with current fastag technology and treat its implementation as the goal rather than the metric of wait time/queue at tolls.

But that is not good enough to stop dreaming. I am for the right technology which improves my driving experience.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI

I will take a slightly different view here.

For one, I think it calls for foresight to identify a current problem (queues at toll plazas) and a vision for a future state (drive by without stopping, no toll plazas)

Secondly, instead of the government being inward looking and not looking ahead (as is usually the case), here you have vehicle owners refusing to embrace fastag (the remaining minority that is) which I can't for the life of me understand. Who gave the right for a certain section to slow down the rest of us ?!

I feel sticking to status quo is the easiest thing to do - be happy with current fastag technology and treat its implementation as the goal rather than the metric of wait time/queue at tolls.

But that is not good enough to stop dreaming. I am for the right technology which improves my driving experience.

I think you are missing the point that many have put forward here. No one here is against technology. But using new/untested technology for the sake of it with high cost doesnt make any sense.

Multiple people have mentioned that the current Fastag can be tweaked/upgraded to read the movement at very minimal cost without having to slowdown the vehicles. That should resolve the "vision" for queue free toll booths.

So what extra does the GPS based system bring in at the high cost?

[pkk077]

Originally Posted by Sree73

Let Govt inrtoduce a toll tax of Rs. 2 per litre of Diesel & Petrol. Annual collection will be 30000 Crores.(300 Billion Rupees)

The only problem is distributing this money correctly then. Its not that central govt. owns all the toll booths on even the national highways. There are numerous private players who have the actual ownership and many of these private players are even foreign entities. Same is the case with state toll booths. So how do we pay these entities? By the length of the roads they own? But we need to factor in traffic load too. The owner of a busier road will expect to be paid more.

One solution could be that the govt. buys back all the toll roads from private operators but the upfront payment for that is going to be huge and if govt. finances allowed it, they would not have brought in private players in the first place.

[mh09ad5578]

The biggest concern I have is if the government will track all the movement through GPS isn't it another big brother watching tech! It's that really needed? Already too much intrusion of government in every aspect of our lives, I'm seeing this as one more!

[Lobogris]

No one should take Gadkari’s claims seriously. He has a habit of making tall claims. This is just a pipe dream and nothing will even start to happen for at least 5 years. This is the same person who said only electric cars will be sold by 2030 and later it was forgotten. He claimed a 90 minute Delhi Jaipur drive at the speed limit of 150. By the way, he promised that the Delhi Jaipur expressway will be completed at “war footing” in a year in 2016 and it is still incomplete. He promised a pod ride between Delhi to Gurgaon in a year in 2015. No pods seen yet. He has made similar claims for completion of various expressways which have been far from reality. So he is known for hyperbole. He even admitted that they made fake tall claims to come to power that they knew would be impossible to deliver! He does good work and sometimes these claims are meant to put pressure on the contractors but one should keep in mind his tendency to exaggerate.

Coming to toll plazas, I feel that they are a actually rather beneficial as long as delays can be minimised. They provide some security in remote stretches as well as toilet facilities and there are plans to have EV charging stations at toll plazas. The police should also use them to catch traffic offenders. All we need is for everyone to have a working Fastag and for the machines to be working in all lanes. Then the delays would become negligible.

[nick.cs]

All this for what? Tolling drivers for the exact kms used in the highway? So that the govt charges me say Rs 62.50 against a Fastag toll of say Rs 75. For such a small amount, I would not want to give up my location full time.

Already i am sure everyone will agree that the queues at toll plazas are now moving faster than before - barring the mess now of truckers hogging all lanes. The incremental, cheaper and sensible option at this point should be to ensure that the Fastag is read at say 40-50 kmph without the car coming to a total halt. This i presume will remove the queuing issue which is the sore point of contention in a much cheaper and satisfactory manner.

To be honest the proposal sounds revolutionary and more appealing to eyeballs. Don't think too much work has gone on operational aspects of it.

[Hayek]

Don’t see tolls going away or taxes on vehicles or fuel reducing. The fact is that the Government of India is chronically short of resources and hence “rich” car owners are going to be tapped all the time. Hence I truly appreciate any system of raising revenues with less pain value for road users. Fastag is a step in the right direction - it easily saves you 30-45 minutes on a drive from Bombay to Mahabaleshwar, and getting rid of toll booths completely would be the next step in that direction.

Gadkari may be shooting his mouth off talking about GPS (remember the GPS chips in the post demonetisation ₹ 2000 notes), but if he brings in Singapore style gantries that can read Fastag or its successor without cars having to slow down, I would gladly pay 50% more toll for that. Fortunately, Gadkari does not determine the technology that will be used - the GOI has got professionals in at senior levels and I assume they will find a sensible solution to achieve the Minister’s objective.

BTW, for folks worried about privacy, I trust you don’t have a mobile phone (which the GOI can track if it wishes) and use only Ubers booked by a third person to avoid being tracked by your registration plate.

[wrongturn]

Classic case of bashing the government without knowing the real facts.
From what I've read so far:

1. FastTag: It would still exist, the wallet would be used to make the payments. So the odd ₹100 one might have spent to get it, is safe don't sweat.

2. GPS Based tracking: It would be done via some VTS aka Vehicle Tracking System that Govt. intends to provide for free? It's a TOI article and they have a strong history of reporting absolute garbage without any concrete information. Such device could be made to switch off/on easily if it's retrofitted in a vehicle and I'm sure it won't be so advance as to also function as an immobilizer, though I wish it could. Also, this is the reason why it won't help in checking vehicle thefts, so let's get over that advantage as well. What makes more sense is to have multiple scanners on the toll roads (National highways, state highways, etc) much like EZ Tag system that was mentioned earlier. And that would also make sure the vehicle is under tracking only on such roads, hence no threat to the perceived non existent privacy.

3. Privacy: Yeah right! Govt. (& even some private enterprises) have ample other ways to not only track one's whereabouts but even more, like see through the mobile cams, listen to your private conversation, etc. I would be rather happy if my vehicle could be tracked all the time. I don't have anything to hide neither I'm involved in any shoddy activity, and a whole lot of other countries keep an eye on their civilians. Nothing new here.

4. GPS based Speed Tickets: We love to preach safe driving ethics and good road manners here and to everyone outside this platform. Why question this then, and interestingly there was a report earlier wherein an overspeeding penalty was proposed to be implemented based on the distance covered between toll plazas, that idea never saw the light of day anyways. If imposed, for me it would only make highways safer, no complaints.

5. Waiting at Toll Plazas: I'm happy that government is actually thinking actively to resolve this issue. Waiting at the toll plaza for 20 odd minutes frustrates me more than any other not so significant issues that are being discussed. Not stopping a vehicle to pay toll whilst keeping the overspeeding in check must be the priority, the system involved could be rectified and sorted with time if it has any issues.
So FastTag didn't work, blame the civilians or the IT department handling it or the corrupt toll plaza operators or the less efficient chip from china or the way it was placed on the vehicle or whatever it was, it didn't work. Should we live with it now because we have pasted a sticker on our vehicle, have invested some valuable time of our lives in procuring it (still less than time spent at a toll plaza) and spent our hard earned $2 on it? Now government must try to rectify the problems and make it work instead of replacing the whole system and introducing more new built to fail ideas on it's people. But honestly I would reserve my comments on the same until I see or read something real from the MoRTH. The politicians don't come up with these ideas, but the officials of concerned govt. departments propose these to the ministry and then it is considered if it's a viable option or not.

Remember the FastTag scam where hackers were able to deduct money from the tags? And, IIRC a warning was issued by the armed forces (Air Force?) about how china was actively collecting data of the users of chinese phones specifically naming xiaomi. Were we Indians concerned even a bit about our privacy then? No, but yeah the government must not know where I'm driving to or where my vehicle is at. Hypocrisy honestly.

Trust me Mr. Nitin Gadkari didn't daydream about it, there is more to it.

We as a community, that represents the Indian car scene globally must refrain from making baseless biases comments before getting accustomed to the actual facts of the matter.

[rbabar]

Glad to see the concern for our privacy by many BHPians. The core of this problem is "trust". There isn't a very strong Privacy Protection Law (like EU's GDPR) in place. Technology without strong governance and protection framework is a bigger problem these days.

[viXit]

Originally Posted by dinesharun

In addition to the fact that many vehicles lack GPS (and retro-fitting would be costly and error prone), we need to remember the fact that the original GPS is an American technology which they could theoretically stop at any point. So building a national system that depends on infrastructure of another country seems risky. Although Indian is currently building it's own GPS network - NavIC , it is nowhere near mature enough and the civilian receivers are not prevalent enough.

Adding to this, from Wikipedia.

Background
The system(NavIC) was developed partly because access to foreign government-controlled global navigation satellite systems is not guaranteed in hostile situations, as happened to the Indian military in 1999 when United States denied the Indian request for Global Positioning System (GPS) data for the Kargil region which would have provided vital information.[15] The Indian government approved the project in May 2013.

I see no need for this GPS based collection.

The most likely thing to happen is the Govt. making us download an app that uses our phone's GPS , like the Aarogya Setu app during CoViD. This is just going to drain batteries and be extremely inefficient. And again, it's going to be depending on America for tax that goes to the Govt.

Why can't they just implement Fastag properly?
Do they not have money to install RFID scanners properly?

I can see how using the infrastructure of the phones and other GPS devices of the travelers is going to save them some money. But it's not foolproof.

[vinodvayyat]

Originally Posted by wrongturn

3. Privacy: Yeah right! Govt. (& even some private enterprises) have ample other ways to not only track one's whereabouts but even more, like see through the mobile cams, listen to your private conversation, etc. I would be rather happy if my vehicle could be tracked all the time. I don't have anything to hide neither I'm involved in any shoddy activity, and a whole lot of other countries keep an eye on their civilians. Nothing new here.

While you might feel comfortable with it, many others may not feel so. It is not because they have got things to hide, but because the administration has no right to see/sense their private properties unless there is a legal warrant. Not everybody is blessed with a mindset through which one can trust the govt and give location details etc.

Originally Posted by wrongturn

So FastTag didn't work, blame the civilians or the IT department handling it or the corrupt toll plaza operators or the less efficient chip from china or the way it was placed on the vehicle or whatever it was, it didn't work. ... The politicians don't come up with these ideas, but the officials of concerned govt. departments propose these to the ministry and then it is considered if it's a viable option or not.

The policy decisions are taken by elected authority and they have the highest stake in such decisions - so better be ready to take some blame as well and not just accolades.

Originally Posted by wrongturn

Trust me Mr. Nitin Gadkari didn't daydream about it, there is more to it...
We as a community, that represents the Indian car scene globally must refrain from making baseless biases comments before getting accustomed to the actual facts of the matter.

Nobody needs to trust Mr. Nitin or anyone else in this forum or outside. The fellow forum members are expressing their feelings within the forum guidelines and this happens for all sort of issues being discussed in this forum. If Govt enjoys the recognitions that come along with their policy implementations, they should as well be ready to feel the heat of their irresponsible actions and comments.

I agree that the details of this so called GPS Imaging isn't available out there. But that doesn't make the thread or discussion irrelevant.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI

I will take a slightly different view here.

For one, I think it calls for foresight to identify a current problem (queues at toll plazas) and a vision for a future state (drive by without stopping, no toll plazas)

This is like an excess of foresight. The GPS/GNSS based toll collection is not just for a toll booth free future, it is more than that.

This is for a future, where the government stands to lose revenue through fuel tax/surcharge/cess by widespread adoption of alternative energy vehicles like EVs. To make up for that, the easy way out is to charge tax/road tax/toll based on the distance covered. More you drive, more you pay.

Maybe a future where even switching ON your vehicle will set the meter running.

For driving without stopping and to do away with queues, they just have to install some powerful overhead readers that can scan the Fastag even at illegal speeds and also penalise non payers with heavy fines. Done.

No need for all these GPS hullabaloo.

[smooth indian]

It surely seems Mr. Gadkari is being very ambitious and optimistic about eliminating toll booths and detecting cars via GPS.

What might happen is that we will still have toll collection points on our highways wherein a fastag is detected and car is identified via high speed cameras and toll is automatically charged to the fastag or if fastag is absent or without sufficient balance the toll is charged as a fine to the registration of the car. Alll this without the need for stopping the car.

I have seen such a system work in the Bay Area; My friend whose car was registered outside California got a bill via mail. Such a system works well and allows for a fairly brisk thorugh a toll collection point.

How GPS comes into the picture without a GPS device is mystery. Any chance our fastags have some GPS chip fitted in them?

[NoLurkerForLong]

Originally Posted by DicKy

...

Rant mode ON
Vehemently oppose tolling on highways.
Please don't bring arguments like "You pay for what you use" OR "There is no free lunch"
By all means toll access controlled roads or expressways. Fine, it is justified.

But to collect tolls on what are essentially the basic road infrastructure needed, is not justified.
Add to that there is no end date for toll collection in most projects.
It starts from 'recovering construction costs' to 'recovering operation costs' to 'recovering for inflation/interest costs' to 'cost of maintaining the roads' to 'toll collection done to reduce congestion'

Like, where does the road tax and fuel taxes go?
Rant mode OFF

I have huge doubht if the money goes to the government coffers at all.

With so much automation and e-payments involved in toll collection, the government should be capable of informing the public on

- Money spent on the project
- Money collected so far
- Money remaining and approx time remaining for that
- If and when maintenance is needed, then estimate for that

In practice, one a toll booth is erected it has never gone away. And public has zero visibility on any of the numbers involved.

Even in the case when toll needs to be permanent for maintenance, I cant imagine it to be at the same level as recouping for initial construction.

Many of you have talked about cess, which are targeted tax collection for specific purpose, but last few years of budget spending has shown that its not happening in reality. Government just uses it as a general fund, so all your infrastructure cess is not really put to use for that purpose.