In a few months, you will experience cashless travel, using a single prepaid electronic card to pass through the toll plazas on Rajiv Gandhi Salai (OMR) and East Coast Road (ECR) from Chennai to Puducherry. The OMR has five toll plazas and the ECR six. Sources in the Tamil Nadu Road Development Company (TNRDC) said that tenders would soon be floated for such an electronic toll collection system that would be installed on one lane at each of the plazas.
“This will help reduce waiting time and cut down on fuel wastage. This system would be more useful for heavy and commercial vehicles that traverse these roads frequently. They can purchase prepaid cards from our plazas or online,” an official explained.
Each time when money was debited from the card, the bank would send a text message to the registered mobile phone that would also help track its movement. On an average, the ECR witnesses 7,000 vehicles a day during weekdays and 11, 000 on weekends.
The traffic pattern on the OMR is quite the opposite: during weekdays, the road is utilised by over one lakh vehicles a day and on weekends, this number reduces by more than half. The electronic card is also likely to be used on the Outer Ring Road from Vandalur to Nemilichery, once tolling commences on the 30-km corridor. Meanwhile, the deadline of January 31, 2015 for implementing electronic toll collection (ETC) systems on the toll plazas on the National Highways is nearing.
According to V. Chinna Reddy, Chief General Manager (Technical), National Highways Authority of India (Chennai region), counters are likely to be opened soon to sell these Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) cards.
