Government to look at enforcement, privacy issues before rolling out GPS-based tolling on NHs

NEW DELHI: The government will need to address issues of enforcement and privacy before rolling out the GPS-based tolling across the national highway (NH) network. Sources said the government is likely to take a legal opinion on the privacy issues considering that all such vehicles will need to get the

Vehicle Tracking System

(VTS) devices, which can be used for real time location.

Union highways minister, Nitin Gadkari last week announced that the

NHAI

will be adopting a GPS-based toll collection system that should see the country become ‘toll booth free’.

In this system, the entire NH network under tolling will be geo-fenced to record the entry and exit of all passenger and

commercial vehicles

. This is essential to ensure the users pay for the exact kilometres that they travel on a tolled stretch. “It’s the fairest tolling philosophy based on pay-as-you-use. It’s a free flow satellite-based electronic toll collection system using GPS and GPRS.”

GPS satellite-based navigation system, the GPRS, is used for providing cellular-based data services. Sources said several Indian firms can provide this system for tolling as this technology has been in use for at least 15 years and the government should ensure that the data is stored in India.

Enforcement is one of the major drivers to bring this technology on road and the government needs to ensure that the users don’t avoid paying the toll charge by disabling the GPS or VTS device. “The government needs to create an ecosystem for legitimate charge back in such cases. For that, it will be required to set up gantry-based automatic number plate readers (ANPR) cameras at all entry and exit points. That would be an expensive proposition,” said an industry source.

Currently, VTS has been made mandatory for all commercial passenger vehicles registered after January 2019. Sources said the tracking through VTS is much different than the current FASTag regime. The FASTag medium for paying toll is a low range read system and it can only track the vehicle within 10 metres of the location where a tag reader is placed.

How the system works:

Every vehicle owner would be required to create a

separate wallet

or the existing wallet of FAStag can be linked to the unique ID of the VTS device. This wallet can be linked to the bank account, UPI or any other account. Using the VTS, the system will exactly locate the vehicle using the latitude and longitude GPS coordinates. “It can compute the kilometres travelled on any tolled road and since the VTS has details of the class of the vehicle and axle configuration, the exact toll amount can be deducted from the wallet,” said an official.