Yellow lines at NH toll booths to end long waiting time for vehicles

NEW DELHI: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Wednesday announced that yellow lines will be drawn at 100 meters at every toll lane and once the queue of vehicles touch that line, the toll operator will have to open the gate for all vehicles on that lane to travel free.
In a statement, the NHAI said this is part of its guidelines to ensure minimal waiting time at the toll plazas and to ensure that the total transaction time for a vehicle is more than 10 seconds even at peak hours at the toll plazas.
TOI on February 24 had first reported about this NHAI plan to make toll operators accountable and improve efficiency in their operations.
“Although in most of the toll plazas, there is no waiting time after mandatory 100% Fastag, even then if there is queue of waiting vehicles of more than 100 metres due to some reason, the vehicles will be allowed to pass without paying toll till the queue comes within 100 meters from the toll booth,” the NHAI said.
It said since NHAI has successfully transitioned to 100% cashless tolling from mid of February, the overall FASTag penetration in toll plazas has reached 96% and many toll plazas have 99% penetration. “Keeping in view the growing Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) penetration in the country, it has been emphasized to have a new design and construct the upcoming toll plazas as per traffic projections for next 10 years to have an efficient toll collection system,” the NHAI said.