Breeze through this toll plaza

Drivers on the Chennai-Bengaluru Highway often faced long waits at the Sriperumbudur toll plaza — 40 seconds on a good day and more than two minutes on others. But soon, drivers can zoom past the toll plaza as boom barriers across all ten lanes are being removed, making this the first in South India to go barrier-free. A Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) system will use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras mounted on overhead gantries to scan number plates and deduct toll fees from FASTag accounts.But don't think you can slip past without paying — apart from ANPR cameras, RFID scanners will track every vehicle, ensuring toll is processed even if cameras fail to capture vehicle number details accurately.Vehicles with invalid FASTags or insufficient balance will face double penalties. For instance, a car without a valid FASTag will be charged 100 instead of the usual 50. If a vehicle keeps evading payments, its FASTag account will be blacklisted. The bank or agency managing the system will send an e-notice to the owner, and if dues remain unpaid, the amount will be directly debited from the bank account linked to the FASTag, said an Indian Highway Management Company Limited (IHMCL) official.With this move, around nine lakh vehicles using the Chennai-Bengaluru National Highway regularly are set to save 66 crore every month in fuel costs and delays, said an IMHCL official.The system does more than just collect tolls. It will also cross-check vehicle details with the Union govt's Parivahan database, verifying fitness certificates and insurance. Vehicles without valid documents will receive e-challans.Law enforcement will also use the system to track stolen or suspect vehicles. Currently, tracking such vehicles involves manually reviewing hundreds of camera feeds, particularly in hit-and-run cases where suspects use highways to escape into rural areas of Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh.. Sriperumbudur toll plaza is critical for both these routes. "If we receive an alert that a suspect vehicle has crossed this toll, it can save us hours ," said retired police constable Sivalingam.Indian Highway Management Company Limited (IHMCL), a subsidiary of the National Highways Authority of India overseeing electronic toll collection (FASTag), plans to engage a bank or external agency to complete installation of this system within this year-end.Transportation activist S Kamal said, "With boom barriers set to be removed, toll booths placed between lanes should also be eliminated, following the model used in Western countries, where only a centralized toll booth is housed in the control centre building." These structures currently occupy nearly one-third of the road space, removing them would allow NHAI to add an extra lane on both sides, improving traffic flow, he said.
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