Accelerating Intelligent Mobility in India TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

The evolving technology for Smart Highways

The future of GNSS in India is promising, given the increasing demand for location-based services (LBS) and the Government’s push toward indigenous technologies states Akash Sinha, CEO, Tecsidel. The Company has developed prime position in specialized toll systems and ITS

GNSS would be a revolution for Indian Tolling as this will allow motorists for paying toll charges only for the highway section they use. The GNSS will also increase more opportunity and business for the tolling industry and make highways faster and smarter. 

– Akash Sinha

One of your main focus areas currently is being part of the country’s plan for GNSS implementation in traffic management.

As GNSS is the latest trending technology that Indian Roads will be witnessing very soon we have already geared up to move with the flow. We are fortunate enough (and thanks to NHAI / IHMCL) that the pilot of GNSS which was done this year at Rohtag Hisar stretch as well as on-going pilot at Bangalore-Mysore, Tecsidel demonstrated its Integrated Software developed for GNSS which collects data from Map Matching Software as well as various Toll Plazas and gantries, processes all this data and then calculates the charges and sends the same to Banking system for deduction.

Tecsidel is backed by local software & hardware team and experience in global ITS and Multi Lane Free Flow worldwide. We have already partnered for GNSS Map matching with one of the leaders in the world. In 2022, we demonstrated MLFF (Multi Lane Free Flow) system also on Delhi Gurgaon Highway that has nearly 99% accuracy Tecsidel was also part of the successful GNSS Pilot Trial run at Rohtak- Hisar Stretch.

How can the new technology facilitate smart mobility and what are the challenges you foresee?

 With GNSS tolling, one can pay toll for the road sections as authorities are planning to charge only for distance travelled beyond a stipulated minimum distance. The system for paying only for the stretch travelled and not for the entire stretch will be of advantage to the commuters. Exclusive GNSS lane on any toll plaza will facilitate movement with “zero wait time” and reduction in emission.

However, every technology comes with certain challenges and need modifications based on user feedback. FasTag also went with many changes to be finally accepted successfully. The challenges one envisages in GNSS implementation could be:-

• Distribution of OBUs (on Board Unit) installed in vehicles and how to make them rugged.
• Whether the existing OBUs available in the existing vehicles can cater the requirement of GNSS and can be used or not
• Implementing high quality RFID readers and cameras on GNSS Toll lane at plazas so that vehicles do not stop. This can also be extended in all lanes so that overall traffic can be reduced at the plaza
• Integration of WIMs should also be one of the concern because today there are WIMs at all lanes and we can stop overloading vehicles or penalize them for damaging the road. However once GNSS is live, the big commercial vehicles will be the main people taking these OBUs and if we don’t have a provision of stopping them, our road will start getting damaged exponentially. High Speed WIM could be one way for checking these vehicles while on highways and segregating them for overweight
• Data Security and encryption will be a major challenge that needs to be taken care of
• Privacy could pose a challenge as India is probably the first country to implement GNSS for private cars also

You have successfully implemented Advanced Traffic Management on highways and ITS projects. How important are these in terms of technology deployment? What are the new solutions you want to develop in future?

We are the first company in India to implement ATMS as per NHAI 2023 mandate. The VIDES (Video Incident Detection and Enforcement System) project implemented by Tecsidel in the Bangalore-Mysore region is a part of our ITS initiatives particularly focused on vehicle detection, analysis, and decision with surveillance. The VIDES provides information on motorist speed (Vehicle Actuated Speed Display System) at which they are driving as well as enforce them through ANPR once over-speeding is detected. The system is also capable to be used for enforcement in conditions like wrong way driving, wrong lane driving, non-usage of seat belt & helmet and many more. It is now recorded that there is a sharp decline in accidents on this stretch.

Coming to the new developments, we are regularly learning and identifying what all can be improved in our present road solutions as well as learning from the customer/ user behavior and developing the modification. Apart from GNSS and MLFF, the two main focus areas we are also working on now are – Smart City solutions and Smart Parking.