Zip past NHAI toll plazas in 10 seconds, free if queue is longer than 100 metres

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued fresh guidelines for its toll plazas across the country. NHAI said that the new guidelines are aimed at ensuring 'minimal waiting time at the toll plazas'.

According to the new guidelines, queue of vehicles at toll plazas will never get longer than 100 metres. NHAI seeks to reduce the service time taken to process toll fees to no more than 10 seconds per vehicle even during peak hours.

In case, for some reason, such queues get longer than 100 metres, the NHAI has issued instructions to let vehicles at the front of the line to pass the toll gate without having to pay toll charges. To ensure that this move is implemented, NHAI will draw a yellow line at the 100-metre mark from the toll gate on each lane.

The NHAI said, "even then if there is a queue of waiting vehicles of more than 100 metres due to some reason, the vehicles will be allowed to pass without paying toll till the queue comes within 100 meters from the toll booth".

Since the implementation of FASTag electronic toll processing system, waiting period at toll plazas have been drastically reduced on national highways. This not only ensures there is no traffic chaos at toll gates, but also help vehicle owners save fuel in the process. According to the NHAI, the overall FASTag penetration at toll plazas has reached 96 per cent and many of them have 99 per cent penetration.

"Keeping in view the growing Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) penetration in the country, it has been emphasised to have a new design and construct the upcoming toll plazas as per traffic projections for the next 10 years to have an efficient toll collection system," NHAI said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

The NHAI said that Covid-19 protocol like social distancing has also helped a lot of people opt for the electronic toll payment system to avoid contactless transactions. The constant growth and adoption of FASTag by the highway users is encouraging and has helped in bringing more efficiency in toll operations, it added.

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