The authorities is transferring forward with plans to take away toll plazas on India’s nationwide highways and as an alternative depend on automated quantity plate reader cameras, which can learn car quantity plates and routinely deduct tolls from linked financial institution accounts of car homeowners. Will take Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari mentioned {that a} pilot of the scheme is underway and authorized amendments are additionally being made to facilitate this transition.
“In 2019, we made a rule that cars will come with company-fitted number plates. So, the vehicles that have arrived in the last four years have different number plates. Now the plan is to remove toll plazas and install cameras, which will read these number plates and toll will be deducted directly from the account. We are also piloting this scheme. However, there is a problem – there is no provision under the law to penalize a vehicle owner who skips the toll plaza and does not pay. We need to bring that provision within the ambit of law. We may bring a provision for cars which do not have these number plates, to have them installed within a certain period. We will need to bring a bill for this,” Gadkari advised The Indian Express.
At current, round 97 per cent of the full toll assortment amounting to Rs 40,000 crore is thru FASTags – the remaining 3 per cent pay increased than regular toll charges for not utilizing FASTags. With FASTags, it takes about 47 seconds per car to cross a toll plaza and there’s a important throughput enhance – 112 autos per hour by way of the handbook toll assortment lane as in comparison with 112 autos per hour by way of the digital toll assortment lane. Hours More than 260 autos may be processed. for presidency statistics.
While the usage of FASTags has eased site visitors at toll plazas throughout the nation, congestion continues to be reported as there are toll gates that should be crossed after authentication. Some of the problems with FASTags which have been made obligatory from February 16, 2021 embrace: Users with low balances enter price plaza lanes, finally leading to longer processing time; Internet connectivity concern at distant charged plazas on account of which low-balance FASTag standing just isn’t up to date in lively FASTag in time by plaza server; breakdown of radio frequency identification (RFID) readers and tags; and improper software of FASTags by customers.
With the usage of quantity plate reader cameras, often known as automated quantity plate reader (ANPR) cameras, toll plazas are more likely to be additional decreased overcrowding, however quite a bit will rely upon the implementation of the system. An business insider, who didn’t want to be recognized, mentioned multiple know-how can be wanted to make sure that the system is foolproof and that there are not any leaks. “The ANPR camera is accustomed to reading the number plate number nine and, if there is anything beyond that – like the number plate has something written on what we usually come across in most vehicles in the country – the camera will not read it,” he mentioned.
He mentioned exams confirmed that the digital camera remembered about 10 p.c of quantity plates as a result of that they had textual content past 9 phrases and numbers. Such techniques may be carried out on new tasks with FASTag and GPS toll, he added. “In a country like India, we will need more than one system to ensure minimum revenue loss,” he mentioned.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
