The Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, said that toll plazas on national highways will soon be replaced by a new satellite-based toll collection system. It looks like India is all set to advance to the latest satellite-based toll collection system, which will utilize cameras and GPS to deduct fees from vehicles. Earlier, the UN minister said that the new toll system will be implemented at the end of this month, and it is likely to start functioning by summer 2024. The ministry is running a pilot program to evaluate the viability of the new GPS-based toll collection system.
The primary aim of this innovative system is to reduce traffic at toll booths by eliminating physical toll booths across the country in the future. Gadkari said that the fees will be directly deducted from the user's bank account by the new toll collection system. The value of the toll will depend on the distance covered by a vehicle, and all the data will be acquired via GPS. As of now, at each plaza, toll prices are set regardless of the distance covered by any vehicle.
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Gadkari announced last year that the new GPS-based toll collection system would be set up by the end of March 2024. However, the implementation has been delayed because of the code of conduct model for the Lok Sabha elections. Gadkari elaborated how the new system will help in saving time and petrol, and the National Highway System’s road network will become identical to the US system by 2024.
The UN minister said, “Earlier, it used to take nine hours to travel from Mumbai to Pune. Now it is a 2-hour journey. Seven hours of diesel get saved. Naturally, we have to pay some money in return. We are doing it through public-private investment. So we will have to return the money too."
Currently, toll plazas implemented on national highways deduct toll money via RFID technology named FASTag. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) receives the toll payments. FASTag was implemented as the required toll collection system on February 15, 2021. There are cameras installed at the barrier, and they scan the FASTag IDs of passing cars and charge toll fees as per the distance covered from the old toll booth. Toll payments are currently made electronically at toll plazas via the FASTag system, which significantly reduces wait times. The average wait time on national highways has significantly improved since FASTag was implemented, going from 714 seconds to just 47 seconds.
