In a recent revelation, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari mentioned implementing a GPS-based toll collection system. This new toll collection system will likely replace all the physical toll booths across the country. Recently, MoRTH is making a lot of changes to completely revamp the transportation system in the country. With the introduction of online RTO services, making FASTag mandatory now the introduction of GPS based toll collection do improve the hassle-free experience for the citizens.
How Will The GPS-Based Toll Collection Work?
GPS based imaging forms the basic foundation for this system which keeps track of all the vehicles and the route which they are taking and accordingly the amount gets deducted from the user’s bank account. The government plans to implement this system over a period of 12 months. But, having seen the glitches during the implementation of the lesser technologically advanced FASTag toll collection system, citizens may look at this new GPS-based toll collecting system with suspicious eyes. Moreover, the jobs of all the staff working at the toll plazas are also at the risk and also we are not pretty much sure how the citizens will react to fitting yet another equipment on their cars which will facilitate the working of this new GPS-based toll collection system after the woes of FASTag implementation.
The Current Situation Of FASTag
Since February 15th 2021, any vehicle without a FASTag pays double the toll. The Ministry for Road Transport and Highways mentions that over 93 per cent of the total vehicles in the country pay toll using FASTag and the figure will soon increase as more and more vehicles are opting for FASTag as days pass on. The Government is also planning to enable all the public parking lots including those in the airports, shopping complexes and hospitals with FASTag which will help in decreasing the queue length, thus reducing the citizen’s commute time. In fact, this system is already in action at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad which did result in shorter queues and wait time.
