How it Works: Satellite-Based Toll Collection System To Replace Toll Plazas

Written by A GURUSAIRAM

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How it Works: Satellite-based Toll Collection System To Replace Toll Plazas

Fastag was being ineffective enough to freeing us from long lines at toll plazas, so Nitin Gadkari wanting to employ the next level of technology available for helping us to save some time
Satellite based Toll Collection System

Over a decades ago, the collection of tolls on highways were purely doing in cash or via card, till FASTags were introduced in 2014. The introduction of FASTags making the toll payment process quicker and more seamless, and only be made mandatory for every single car and toll booth after January 2021. However, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari planning to make FASTags and even toll plazas completely obsolete with a new satellite being based toll collection system. Learning more about what this space-age system is and how it working in this detailed article.

What Is GPS Based Toll Collection

The traditional way of paying your dues for using a toll road and/or highways was at the toll collection plaza, a large structures that’s building at much expenses and requiring a lots of manpower to operating smoothly. Even with FASTag, vehicles needing to slowdown considerably to getting scanned through for the toll payment, which still creating a traffic jam, especially in cases for large commercial vehicles. However, the GPS based toll handling system utilizing satellites and tracking systems installing in cars that’ll measuring the distance traveled by your car and the toll being charged based on the distances covered.

How Will It Works GPS-based Toll Collections

Implementing this new method not being easy and will taking a few years for every car to be equipped with the technology. However, if implementing successfully, this being how the process will is working.

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The cars will needing to be equipped with an OBU (on-board unit) which acts as a tracking device for the toll collection system.

The OBU will tracking the coordinates of your car when you are driving on highways and toll roads, and those coordinates will be sharing with the satellite to calculating the distance you have traveled.

This system will working using GPS (Global Positioning System) which operating using the GNSS (Global Navigation System) that helping maintaining correctness in the distance calculation.

There also going to be cameras placed on these highways for ensuring that the distance is being measured properly by comparing the coordinates of the car with the pictures taken. The camera being able to helping figuring out which cars not having OBUs, or might be having it disabling, by running the number plates against the satellite tracking and toll collection data.

Initially this toll collecting system will be implemented on just a few major highways and expressways across the country.

The OBUs are crucial to this system, being as much as the satellites and the tracking softwares. However, it now being not in cars and will having to be installing externally. As of now, having no information about how and where to getting these OBUs, but the process might be similarly to FASTags when they initially introduced. Thinking about how the process will be.

Like FASTags, these OBUs will be available through government websites, where you’ll be able to ordering them by entering your car’s registration number and completing a KYC.

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Once you applying for the OBU, you’ll needing to get it linked to your bank account.

After the implementation of this toll collection system, car manufacturers might simply start selling their cars with OBUs already installing at the time of delivery, which you then linking to your bank account.

Just like FASTags, banks and private companies might also starting selling OBUs.

After installing the OBU in the car, based on the distance being traveled, the toll amount will automatically deduce from your linked bank account.

Advantages of GPS Toll Collection

In this process, since the data from the tracking device being shared directly with the satellite, the presence of toll plazas will not needed which making the drive even more convenient and also helping you saving the time you would otherwise having to spend waiting in lines.

Another advantage offering by this system being that the users only paying for the section of the highways they used. Currently, the entry and exit points of toll roads and highways being hard to monitor and you might have to paying for the whole stretches between toll plazas. The GPS based system would cutting these costs, which being especially handy for cross-country commercial commutes.

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Will It Work In India?

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The GPS based toll collection system not being something entirely new as it already been implemented in countries like Germany and Singapore. In India, the biggest challenge being the shear scale of the roads that be monitored by this system, just like as the wide variety of vehicles. The country already quite adept at switching to digital transactions and new technologies for cost cutting.

However, to doing this, the current infrastructures around FASTags will have to be removing, the new infrastructure be needing to be creating, which not only taking time, but also being expensive. The cost of replacing the entire infrastructure might ending up be passed on to the customer in the form of increasing toll prices.

As of now, the GPS based toll collection system seems like a good idea to keep India up to date with roadway technologies that would streamlining the process. However, the implementation and adoption not being easy, like being witnessing with the FASTags. Ultimately, we reckon that if the government starting to working on it now, it’ll taking around a decade for it to being implemented across the country.

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