Chennai
Meant to ensure quick transition through toll plazas, save fuel and reduce travel time, compared to manual payment which leads to long queues, the process ensures that a tag affixed to a vehicle’s windscreen is read by toll plaza mounted tag reader using RFID (radio frequency identification) technology.
The toll amount is automatically deducted from a tag linked prepaid account without the vehicle having to stop.
With Tamil Nadu having 22,900 kilometres of four-lane national highways, and another 25,000 km being either four or six lanes, the advantages of using ETC are many. The Union road transport ministry plans to make all toll plazas across the nation ETC enabled to enhance user experience and save nearly Rs. 86,000 crore in fuel, as stated by Union surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari recently.
Tamil Nadu has 43 toll plazas on the national highways and the Sriperumbudur ETC experiment has been undertaken on a trial basis. Implemented in December last, sources said “it functioned well till the tag reader sensor developed problems and allowed many vehicles to pass through.” It is now being rectified.
The Tiruchi toll plaza near Samayapuram has created dedicated lanes for ETC, one in each direction. Sources said the Sriperumbudur toll plaza has also tried out ETC in one dedicated lane in each direction.
ETC while deducting toll, uses a vehicle classification system based on axles, distance between axles, single and double wheels and multiple vehicle heights. This is done using toll plaza based infra-red sensors. ETC transactions are relayed to CCH (Central Clearing House) which debits the correct toll from pre-paid accounts and credits it to the toll collection agency concerned. The vehicle owner gets a message for each transaction.
Sources said stolen vehicles, vehicles with chassis mismatch, those with insufficient balance and those running without paying toll are blacklisted. The list shared by toll plazas ensures that such vehicles are stopped at the next collection point for necessary action.
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