The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has come up with a couple of new guidelines which, in theory, will help reduce waiting times at toll plazas across the country. It says that service time for each commuter at the toll gate should not be more than 10 seconds, even during peak hours. This is for all toll plazas erected on National Highways.

Another rule that has been devised is that there shouldn’t be a queue for more than 100 metres in any lane at any given moment. Suppose the length of the congestion surpasses the 100-metre mark. In that case, the vehicles will be allowed to pass without paying the tax until the queue comes under the three-digit threshold. How will one measure? Each lane will have a yellow line at a distance of 100 metres from the toll collection booth.

Sounds promising. Well, yes. But, the real question is how does NHAI plan to enforce the new guidelines? Also, what happens to toll plazas that don’t abide by these new rules? According to NHAI’s website, there are over 600 toll plazas on National Highways in India. Ensuring that each one of them adheres to the new rules will be a challenge, especially if the governing body plans to do so manually.

Another attempt to bring down waiting times at toll plazas came in the form of FASTag. Yes, it has made some impact, but technical difficulties at booths continue to plague commuters. NHAI says that the overall FASTag penetration has reached 96 per cent, with several toll plazas at 99 per cent.

Keeping the traffic projections in view for the next 10 years, NHAI is working on a new design for upcoming toll plazas, incorporating a more efficient toll collection system. If that’s the case, why is the government also working on a GPS-based toll collection solution? For that, the toll plazas aren’t required.

Note: All images in this article have been taken from NHAI's Toll Collection System website.