Road commuters in the country will soon have the option of making their toll payments through mobile phones or tablets and can avail this service by downloading the application which is set to be available on Android, iOS and BlackBerry platforms.”We have asked the company that is providing the application to test it at our toll plazas and they are to start the pilot on the 114-km-long Tumkur-Chitradurga section of NH-4,” said a senior road transport ministry official.

The application called ‘m-toll’ has been developed by ConnectXcite Mobi India Ltd and will be available for download from December-end.

“The pilot will begin from December-end and the app will also come at the same time. The pilot will be done in two phases. We will start the test with our vehicles initially and move to vehicles using the toll plaza regularly in the second phase,” said Pankaj Chaturvedi, Country head for ConnectXcite in India.

Road users will need to download the application on their mobile phones or tablets and fill in their details. The server, which will be installed at the toll plazas, will detect their mobile phones and the money will be automatically deducted.

“Road users can make the payment through their pre-paid phone balance, post-paid phone account, credit cards, net banking and even cash-based scratch cards that every concessionaire will be authorised to sell,” said Chaturvedi.

Every payment made through other modes, apart from the scratch card sold by the toll plaza operator, will reach the toll plaza operators account in 24 hours from the time payment is made.

“In case three people, with m-toll on their mobiles, are travelling together in a car, all will get an indication to opt for payment. The money will be deducted from the account of the mobile that opts for it. In case no one opts for payment, money will be deducted from the oldest registered mobile phone,” Chaturvedi further explained.

He added that the registered mobile owner will be verified personally in case the handset being used to make payment switches off due some issues.

To ensure smooth passage for commuters at toll plazas, the road transport ministry is also doing a pilot on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

A committee under Nandan Nilekani has suggested introduction of RFID cards for smooth passage on toll plazas at national highways.

Unlike the mobile system, RFID requires a chip-embedded sticker to be put on the vehicles and money gets deducted at the toll plazas automatically, through which the vehicles pass. Unlike the mobile system, money collected from it is to be pooled electronically at one place and distributed later among all toll plaza operators.

Source-http://www.indianexpress.com

ETC will enable automatic toll collection, vehicle identification and traffic monitoring.It would be installed at toll plazas on all national highways by the Indian Highways Management Company Limited by March 31, 2014.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways aims to rollout Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) across all the toll plazas on National Highways in the entire country by March 31, 2014.

This was stated by Dr. CP Joshi, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) here today while delivering the keynote address at a discussion organised on” India’s Highways – Next Gen Tolling and Corridor Management”.

Electronic Toll Collection is a system enabling collection of toll payments electronically allowing for near-nonstop toll collection and traffic monitoring. ETC utilizes vehicles equipped with transponders (electronic tags), wireless communication, in-road/roadside sensors and a computerized system (hardware and software) for uniquely identifying each vehicle, electronically collect toll, providing general vehicle/traffic monitoring and data collection.

Here is the text of Minister’s speech:

“I am confident that the daylong discussions would have sparked off ideas that have the potential of revolutionizing Tolling and Corridor Management on Indian Highways. The mission of Government of India has been to make quality highway network across the country and make the system transparent and responsive. In our bid to do so I am glad to share that by the end of this financial year we would complete construction of nearly 3000 kilometers of National highways, which is a record till date.

Along with constructing highways we are also re working our systems to sync with times. To make the system transparent we first introduced e-tendering, followed it with pilot project to Electronically Collect Toll. Now we have a vision to mark national highway network on maps making it compatible to mobile devices and even have apps for highway network.

I will elaborate a bit on our endeavor to implement RFID based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system across National Highways. The RFID technology shall expedite the clearing of traffic at toll plazas and the need of carrying cash shall also be eliminated when toll plazas shall be duly integrated with each other throughout India.

We started a Pilot Project on ETC last year in April at Parwanoo on NH-5. The pilot is being carried successfully and concessionaires have been requested to work out necessary modalities with the ETC solution providers and banks for setting up of Central Clearing House (CCH).

A few more stretches have also been selected for ETC implementation. They are Mumbai – Ahmedabad, Chennai- Bangalore and Gurgaon – Jaipur – Beawar. I would like to assert that by March 31, 2014 we aim to implement ETC across all the toll plazas on our National Highways. For implementation of nationwide electronic toll collection we have recently constituted Indian Highways Management Company Limited (IHMCL) with equity partnership from NHAI (50%) Concessionaries (25%) and institutions (25%).

Government of India is also amending the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 for fitment of RFID tag on vehicles by the automobile manufacturers. I am happy that Feedback Brista Highways OMT Pvt Limited (FBH) has organized this special session to discuss the issues that affect user comfort at the Toll Plazas and how we can develop an effective and efficient mechanism at Toll Plazas on National Highways.

Our endeavor will be to develop policies and systems for happy user experience on Indian Highways through better safety measures and lower waiting time at the Toll Plazas. We will be happy to partner with the Government of Portugal to develop a mechanism for better cooperation and collaboration in this regard.”

Source: Press Information Bureau