Workshop on Nationwide Electronic Toll Collection, held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on June 14, 2011

June 15, 2011

Workshop on Nationwide Electronic Toll Collection

  • Mr. C P Joshi , Honrable Minister Road Transport and Highways
  • Mr.  Nandan Nilkani , Chairman , UIDAI
  • Mr. R S GUJRAL , Chairman NHAI
  • Mr. Ravi Palekar , GM (Electronics) , NHAI – Addressing the gathering
  • Mr. Sachin Bhatia, CEO, Metro Infrasys

Workshop on Nationwide Electronic Toll Collection held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. With an objective of paving way for a unified Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) technology for National Highways in India, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways constituted a Committee under the chairmanship of Shri Nandan Nilekani Chairman of UIDAI with a mandate to examine all technologies available for Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) and recommend the most suitable one for implementation throughout India. The other members of the Committee are Prof. Pankaj Jalote, Director, IIIT-Delhi ; Dr. Kolin Paul, Asst. Professor, IIT-Delhi ; Shri A.V. Sinha, DG (Road Development) & Special Secretary, MoRT&H and Shri. V.L. Patankar, Member (Technical), NHAI (Member Secretary).

The Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Dr. C.P. Joshi has said that we should chalk out a plan to increase the percentage of national highways from present 2.2 % to 5 % in the next 10 years. Delivering inaugural address at the Consultation Workshop with the Technology Providers and Concessionaires in respect of Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) here today, he said that keeping in view the various types of highways there should be a hybrid pattern of toll collection. The Workshop was jointly organized by Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, National Highways Authority of India & National Informatics Centre. The Chairman of UIDAI Shri Nandan Nilkeni & Minister of State for RT&H Shri Tusharbhai A. Chaudhary also addressed the workshop. Shri R.S. Gujral, Secretary Ministry of Road Transport & Highways and Dr. V.K. Gairola, D.G (NIC) were present.

Mr. Sachin Bhatia CEO Metro Infrasys expressing the support from Industry Fraternity

Based on the recommendations of the committee headed by Mr. Nandan Nilekani to use RFID technology for ETC, the Apex Committee, responsible for ETC implementation planning, is in the process of prescribing certain standards which should be complied with all over the country to ensure interoperability. The primary purpose of this workshop was to take feedback from the key stakeholders, comprising concessionaires and ETC technology service providers. Security, cost effectiveness, convenience and scalability have been the main criteria based on which the detailing has been done.

Based on the feedback, the specifications and data detailing will be finalized for open market release. The plan is that the authorized manufacturers will be producing Transceivers and Tags based on these standards, the concessionaires will be procuring these Transceivers and in turn, the technology service providers will be integrating the entire ETC system at the toll plaza. Although details on other aspects like clearing house are being worked out simultaneously, majority of the decisions will depend upon these standards only.

Followings are the Tolling Companies, RFID Manufacturer and concessionaire took part in the workshop:

  • Kapsch Metro
  • Egis Infra
  • L&T Infra
  • GMR
  • HCC Infrastructure
  • JICA
  • IRDSA
  • DSC
  • EFKON India
  • Siemens
  • IAITO Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
  • ESSEN, Mumbai
  • ATT System, Banglore
  • Mitsubishi
  • IBI Group
  • Neology
  • Steria
  • Tag Factory

Brief of discussion over finalization of technology between committee and Industry Peoples:

  • Dr. B.K. Gairola, Director General, NIC  – extreme left
  • Dr. Y.K. Sharma, DDG, NIC - middle position
  • Dr. Rajat Moona, Director General of CDAC, IIT Kanpur
  • Dr. Y.K. Sharma, DDG, NIC - extreme Right

Mr. Venkat from GMR expressed change from IP 66 to IP 65 for the readers as IP 65 is also good enough and IP 66 will increase the cost for the readers without any additional value.

Mr. Hari from Efkon
He raised an issue over the  relative humidity of 100% for Transceiver antenna.

Committee Conclusion :
Committee agreed for the IP 65 standard and 95% relative humidity as it comply against all possible environmental threat at toll scenario.

Mr. Anand Shenoy from IAITO Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
Raised his voice over minimum requirement of reading of 10 Tags per second with 240 bits of EPC memory and 64 bits of Tag Id.

Committee Conclusion: committee agreed onto change it to 2 Tags per second with above said minimum requirement. On the other query raised by Mr. Shenoy that the data retention period must be 3-4 year for the tag memory instead of 10 years as their is no UV protection asked for the tag and without any special material with the effect of UV rays its hard to maintain the data in tag for 10 years, The committee replied as they will keep it under consideration and if required they will bring it in next phase.

On the query raised by Team from Metro Infrasys- Mr. Nitin Thakur and Mr. Harimohan for the option of having color coded  Tags for different class of vehicles, as it will help in operation at toll plazas. The Committee said that it is difficult to see the color in the moving car in the sun. However committee will discuss it in next phase.

Mr. Vipul  Sharma(Left), Mr. Mayank Manish(Right)
The long discussed topic was the polarization standard for the antenna, Panel has asked for circular polarization pattern for the antenna but Mr. Vipul Sharma and Mayank Manish from one of the leading manufacturer of RFID Equipment Neology reasoned to have it linearly polarized due to its long range and less interference phenomenon, also linearly polarized antennas can work at higher speed , committee keep this for discussion and will revert again.

Mr. Manoj Agarwal and Mr. Manish from Delhi Gurgaon Expressway strongly supported the idea of a law for putting a penalty on cash vehicles coming to Tag lane .

For the standard for the communication between plaza server and CCH server, there will be addition of Plaza id into the prescribed format by the committee. Plaza level fare plan and policy will be governed by the plaza itself while the global discount will be governed by the CCH server and will be updated in all the plaza server by CCH server itself. Committee also agreed to look into the various aspects of fare plans at different plazas.

Highlights of the Workshop:

ETC critical components:
Tag Distribution Channel & Inventory Management

  • On-line channels by user
  • Authorized service centers of vehicles (Service centre need to install the SPV client software and antenna connection), since centre must have authorized people to affix tags.
  • RTO(Operation is similar to above)
  • Vehicle dealer network(Operation is similar to above)
  • Authorized point of sale installation(POS can be insurance companies, PUC centers, Petrol Pumps etc; Operation is similar to above)

Inventory Management of Tags:
SPV will keep track of allocated EPC Ids, Tag Ids etc. It will perform a demand forecast Tags and keep the tags available for distribution through distribution channel.

Handling Special Cases

  • Valid ETC enabled vehicle was ejected due to non-read of Tag – Premium cash lane should verify it with the ETC database.
  • Clone Tag – If customer complains/suspects that his/her Tag is cloned, Tag re-initiation is to be done for same Tag. Old Tag value is marked for special handling.
  • Change in registration number of vehicle – Vehicle should approach distribution channel network and get a new tag. Old tag is to be destroyed physically and listed for special handling.
  • De-registration of vehicle (due to destruction/ end of life/ Export etc.)-Tag is to be destroyed physically and listed for special handling.

Listing for Special Attention
Vehicle is listed for special attention following conditions:

  • Insufficient balance as determined by clearing house
  • Credit card co. declined the payment
  • On Police look-out
  • Suspected cloned Tag
  • Tag with invalid Vehicle Registration no. (e.g. when Registration no. is changed)
  • When toll plaza operator notices Tag carrying details different from vehicle itself (e.g. the vehicle Registration no. and/ or Vehicle class)

Videos

Conclusions drawn at the end of the seminar:

Documents Attached:

This story is covered by Mr. Sachin Bhatia.
Chief Editor, IndianTollways
CEO, Metro Infrasys
Email: [email protected]
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DELHI-JAIPUR EXPRESSWAY

March 20, 2008

The Government had announced 1,000 km of expressway along the corridors of Vadodara-Mumbai (400 km) and six others from which the balance 600 km were to be selected. Delhi-Jaipur was one such corridor. Further decision for Delhi-Jaipur expressway is yet to be taken. However, Delhi-Jaipur section has been approved for six laning and the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) concession for the project has been awarded in February, 2008 under National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase-V. This information was given by the Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Shri K.H. Muniyappa in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.  Source: http://pib.nic.in

India’s Largest Toll Plaza – Delhi-Gurgaon

January 28, 2008

Kapsch Metro JV has commissioned the Delhi Gurgaon Expressway with 3 Toll Plazas with a total of 59 toll lanes. The largest toll plaza has a total of 32 + 4 reversible toll lanes.

The Project has a total of 24 ETC with some of them mixed type with cash and smart card facility ; the remaining being cash and smart Card type.

All lanes are equipped with Automatic vehicle classification systems . All the three plazas are interconnected through a WAN.

India’s Largest Toll Plaza -Delhi-Gurgaon is in operation!

The First Kapsch Toll System In India Finalized: Toll System For One Of The Most Frequented Highways Is Up And Running.

Kapsch
Since End of January 2008 runs the operation of the first road toll project of Kapsch TrafficCom AG in India with no problems. Within a joint venture structure – the Kapsch Metro Joint Venture – Kapsch TrafficCom alongside the Indian Metro Road Systems Ltd. fitted one section of the National Highway No. 8 with a modern manual/electronic toll system. This highway covers the route from Delhi to Gurgaon and is one of the most frequented roads in the region. The central toll plaza with altogether 32 toll lanes is one of the largest toll stations in all of Asia.

Since January 2008, the road from Delhi to Gurgaon features a modern manual/electronic toll system based on microwave technology (CEN 278). Completion of this toll system marks the successful finalization of the first road toll project of Kapsch TrafficCom in India. The principal, licensee DS Constructions Ltd., decided to award the contract to the Kapsch Metro Joint Venture in September 2006.

“For us, the selection of KapschMetro JV as a technology partner was an important step in the management of the traffic volumes on the project. The technology selected is stable, secure and has processed over 3 million transactions to date with no problems. The installation of the equipment was done in difficult circumstances with live traffic of over 130,000 per day travelling through the lanes during the installation period. The equipment implementation of the Delhi-Gurgaon toll project is a success story, Kapsch Metro JV delivered the project on schedule and to our complete satisfaction“, explains Allan Le Roux, Chief Operations Officer- Tolling of DS Constructions Ltd.


“Kapsch has already performed successful projects in India in the past, contracting GSM-R work for Indian Railroads, the Indian national railway system. With this commission, we were able to enter the Indian toll system market within an extremely short time, owing our success largely to our staff’s wealth of know-how and to the many years of experience we have in the Asian area. For me, the route that has now been completed is just the beginning of numerous further business ventures in Asia“, says Erwin Toplak, Board Member of Kapsch TrafficCom AG.

The Toll Road project is constructed on a 20 year BOT basis and has a length of 27 km long and rates among the most heavily trafficked projects in the region and provides important connectivity to the Indira Gandhi International Airport of New Delhi and the “New Millennium City” Gurgaon which boasts as having one of the worlds biggest shopping malls! The three toll plazas on the project have a total of 56 toll lanes. The main toll plaza located on the Delhi Haryana Border has 32 toll lanes. Motorists are able to use cash or use a Smart Card in at all lanes except the 4 dedicated non stop lanes with exclusive payment via microwave TAGs.

Kapsch TrafficCom AG is a global provider of innovative road traffic telematic systems, products, and services. Kapsch TrafficCom develops and supplies electronic toll collection systems, in particular multi-lane free-flow (MLFF) systems, and is also able to act as the technical and commercial manager for operating these systems. Further, Kapsch TrafficCom offers traffic management solutions (with the focus on road safety and traffic control), electronic access control systems, and parking space management. Kapsch TrafficCom has established itself among the global market leaders for ETC systems with more than 140 installed toll systems in 30 countries in Europe, Australia, Latin America, the Asian/Pacific Area, and South Africa, which altogether feature more than eleven million transponders and about 11’000 fitted lanes. Kapsch TrafficCom is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, and has subsidiaries and representative offices in 18 countries.

Vienna on 27th March, 2008

For further information, please contact:
Brigitte Herdlicka
Public Relations & Sponsoring
Kapsch Group
Phone: +43 (0) 50 811 2705
1120 Vienna, Wagenseilgasse 1
E-Mail: [email protected]
www.kapschtraffic.com
www.kapsch.net

Work on elevated expressway to start next month, The project will be completed in 30 months

February 20, 2006

The stage is set for work on the nine km Bangalore-Electronic City Elevated Toll Expressway Project to start next month. The Rs. 765-crore project, to be implemented by the Consortium of Soma Enterprises Limited, Nagarjuna Construction Company and Maytas Infra Private Limited, will be completed in 30 months.

The consortium members on Friday announced that they were awarded the contract for the construction of the project on the Bangalore-Hosur section of Hosur Road (from km 9.5 to km 18.5) on a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) basis by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). The Public Private Partnership project was awarded on a negative grant of Rs. 16 crores, they said.

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