Toll Plaza Woes To End, Punjab Mulls Roping Drones For Surveillance - Vijay Inder Singla

Toll Plaza Operators To Spruce Up Services Within 30 Days, Working Of Laddowal Toll Plaza Under Scanner

5 Dariya News

Chandigarh 31-May-2018

In its bid to monitor traffic snarl at toll plazas and to take quick action to ease vehicle flow, the Public Works Department will put drones for video surveillance and real-time mapping of congestion at all major toll plazas, informed Mr Vijay Inder Singla, PWD Minister Punjab.Technically, a tollgate system's efficiency is measured through the queue length and the waiting time. The queue build up is a result of the gap in vehicle clearance vis-a-vis total arrivals at the toll per unit of time. It swells exponentially in a peak hour. So, despite better roads, Toll Plazas only end up slowing down traffic.Hence, deployment of drones is being considered to streamline the vehicular flow. The attempt is to save as many persons/minutes as possible and stop the cascading effect of the highway traffic on to the service lanes and alternate routes, said he.Following series of complaints about long queues and miss behaviour by the staff of Toll Plazas, a special meeting was convened with the Toll Plaza operators in the State and the officials of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). These operators are managing 15 Toll Plazas on National Highways and 23 on State roads. 

The Minister voiced the public concern about traffic congestion leading to inordinate delay, wastage of public time and fuel and also the deficiencies in service at the toll plazas across the State. They were categorically told spruce up functioning within 30 days and provide public facilities at toll plazas as per the terms and conditions of their contract, including a fully equipped Ambulance, Recovery van, Drinking water, lighting, Toilet facility and sign boards.Better facilities for the commuters in terms of courteous attitude of the staff, construction of additional lanes where ever feasible, usage of additional hand-held machines for toll collection and regular maintenance of BOT roads, berms, edgings, markings and plantation were also discussed.Deeming the absence of the representative from M/s Sona Enterprises responsible for the operation of Toll plaza at Laddowal on N.H.1 near Ludhiana as non inclination to redress the complaints against its services, the department wrote against the operator to the NHAI seeking necessary action and temporary permission of free movement of traffic without payment of any toll, till the operator amends its ways and takes corrective measures.