TrafficInfraTech Magazine Linking People Places & Progress
Tolling today is an essential aspect of India’s road transport system. The sooner we embrace technology to make road transportation efficient for commercial as well as personal usage, the more it will benefit not only in reducing travelling times, save fuel costs of transportation but also make our economy efficient & productive. Thus RFID tolling is an excellent and a right step forward. The biggest challenge this adaptation will face is the smooth implementation of RFID tags in terms of retail availability, easy to use payment, a good recharge system and a real time reporting status system. Once these facilities are available for a user, it will make adaptation of RFID tolling more widespread among the masses.
Given India’s vast demography, roads will play a crucial role not only in transportation but also as a backbone to our economic growth. India’s biggest challenge as well as opportunity is to make our country more efficient and productive in the way we use our infrastructure. RFID tolling is just a start in that direction and there will be similar measures in other areas of transportation & logistics for our country.
RFID is the best technology suitable for Indian conditions. However, it needs to be given attention in a very focussed manner which is missing as of now. NHAI should expedite the process of rolling out Central Clearing House functionality at the earliest and then should also emphasise on making it mandatory for every four wheeler to necessarily have a ETC TAG installed.
With the above processes in place, lot of improvement in transaction time for collection of money will happen thus benefiting the motorists, concessionaire and the society in large as it will result in considerable savings of fuel and time and it increases convenience.
The only challenge I feel is how quickly we roll out the entire program of Central Clearing House and making sure that all the infrastructure required is in place and care is taken that all the infrastructure is up and running continuously.
The major success of RFID – ETC till date has been on dedicated corridors which facilitate regular traffic between defined points. The implementation and performance of the same has been satisfactory. A good exposure towards usage and maintenance of such a system needs to be imparted to the toll operators and users. The concessionaires and operators are coming to accept the idea and are actively talking about technology intervention not only for ETC but also for better traffic management and information systems. One of the biggest achievements has been the familiarization of the solution, its operation and implementation by all involved. This paves the way for taking the next step of seamlessly integrating it and making it effective.
RFID based tolling has many advantages: it is less sensitive to adverse conditions and reduces inventory control & provisioning costs
Some of the challenges in having uniform RFID tolling systems in India are having backend integration of toll collection and its allocation system to concessionaires. A monetization system of tags and their unified database has to be implemented. Also, there has to be a tie-up between a banking concessionaire and the user. The Central Clearing House for RFID tolling needs o be established on a solid basis and fortified. The toll operators and users have to be educated in the operation, maintenance and usage of tolling equipment. A pan India secured distribution structure for tags and their unified database have to be established. Further, there has to be a civil alignment of ETC lanes and uniform implementation on national and state highways.