Teething trouble at toll plaza

GURGAON: Delhi to Gurgaon in 15 minutes? Not yet, you still have to wait. Teething troubles continued to plague the 32-lane toll plaza on Delhi-Gurgaon expressway on Monday as it failed miserably to handle the added rush of office-goers. Agitated commuters could do little but wait, as vehicles piled up on both sides of the toll plaza.
On an average, traffic snarls lasted for over 30 minutes during peak hours.And late in the evening, the jam extended to a portion of the Udyog Vihar flyover. Officials of D S Constructions admitted that the traffic jam had become quite "unmanageable" and they had to let commuters cross the plaza without paying tax for two-three minutes, just to "bring relief" to the harried lot. Incidentally, Monday was the first time that the expressway was handling office-hour rush after its Friday evening opening.
The concessionaire blamed the situation on the heavy traffic volume and absence of toll road "etiquette" among commuters, asserting that there was nothing wrong with the toll tax mechanism.
A visit to the plaza in the evening revealed that commuters were confused over which lane to take - there was hardly anyone to guide them at first - and many of them lined up in the tag lane, though they did not carry tags. For a while, toll managers let even unmarked vehicles pass through this lane. Later, barricades were put up and officials personally asked vehicles, which did not have official stickers, to divert to other lanes.
The slow movement of vehicles at the plaza also raised tempers and many resorted to constant honking. "I have been waiting for over 20 minutes, but my car has hardly moved. At this rate, it will take me an hour to just reach the toll booth," said Shivam Aggarwal, a DLF resident, who was going home from his CP office. Commuters complained that waiting at the plaza for 40-45 minutes was becoming a routine affair during peak hours.
Adding to the chaos, drivers kept changing lanes, depending on the length of the queues. This was dangerous, said officials, which could even lead to accidents. They admitted that they did not have adequate staff to enforce order and handle the huge rush of traffic in peak hours.
NHAI officials said the rush has become unmanageable because tolling was started within two days of opening the expressway. This did not allow enough time to sell smart tags or passes. Traffic snarls will only get worse untill at least 40% of the daily users switch to smart tags and passes to reduce the waiting time at the toll plaza. "Had the RTR-Palam flyover been opened on December 31, as per the earlier plan, things would have been much better. The toll managers would have got time to sell more tags and streamline traffic management," said a NHAI official.
"No expressway can manage such a huge traffic volume unless at least 50% traffic zipping through the plaza becomes no-stop," he added. Officials of D S Constructions said as of now only 10,000-odd commuters have bought tags and passes. "To help commuters, we have deployed about 100 runners who issue chits after collecting the tax so that vehicles don't have to stop," they added.
However, Vibhu Narayan, a BPO employee, said: "What's the use of buying tags or passes when we still have to wait in queues at the plaza?"
dipak.dash@timesgroup.com
richi.varma@timesgroup.com