Imagine you are in a car travelling from one side of a country to another on a road trip. The moment you pass your city limits and enter a new region, you have to stop at the toll plaza. When at a toll plaza, a ticket collector will ask drivers for cash, printing a receipt, giving back change, and then opening the toll barrier. After all of this, you can finally leave the toll plaza and be on your way. Now imagine going through that numerous times on your trip.
If you assume that the entire process of collecting toll from one driver takes around 60 seconds, you would have to account for all the plazas that you would go through on your road trip. If you are travelling a long distance, you can end up having to pass through five plazas in a day. While spending 5 minutes of your trip might not seem like a problem to you, it is a major problem for the toll collection system.
If you could account for all the vehicles that pass through every toll plaza in the country and apply the same collection time to all of them, you’d be shocked with the total amount it takes for toll collection. An estimated 480 plus toll plazas, just on the national highway network, collects tolls from millions of vehicles. Continuing with the same process of collecting toll is not a sustainable plan.
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Digital toll collection
Due to the issues with the traditional method of collecting tolls, it is important for the government to make changes to the process. These changes need to lower the time of collecting toll. The key to solving this problem was found in technology. It was about using technology to make the process less time consuming and as automated as possible.
Some of the options available to do so include:
- Traditional swipe-based transactions
- Near field communication (NFC) cards
- Radio frequency-based cards (RFID)
FASTag & its benefits
Out of the three options mentioned above, the fastest option is the one that includes Radio frequency-based cards. A toll option based on that technology has recently been introduced. Known as FASTag, it aims to de-clutter the way toll plazas across national highways collect money. At the same time, it works towards offering better service to drivers. The basic idea of FASTag is that there should be no cash transaction at the toll plaza. Powered by digital payment options, it replaces the chance for delay or error.
As good as FASTags can do in toll collection, many of their best benefits are not related to it at all. For example, a FASTag linked with a GST e-way bill could allow authorities to track any vehicle entering into a region’s boundaries without the need for physical barriers. Alternatively, if a commercial vehicle deviates from the route that it was permitted to use, authorities can track the vehicle using a FASTag.
The program is still at a growing stage and one can buy fastag online as well with ease. Hence, one can assume the various benefits that it will also offer in the future.
