Hi-tech toll plaza on Gurgaon

GURGAON: A completely new experience is being promised for commuters on the Delhi-Gurgaon highway once the proposed 32-lane toll plaza becomes operational. Slated to be the largest of its kind in India, the hi-tech plaza would assure speed, transparency and efficiency.

Spokesman of D S Constructions, Rafiq Khan, said, ‘‘The automated tolling system at the plaza would also have lanes for commuters where they would not have to stop and pay the toll if they already have toll tags on their vehicles.

As it is expected that in the next few months the 27.8 kilometer stretch will witness a huge traffic flow Khan said the plaza has been designed to be flexible enough to be able to change at short notices. Besides 16 lanes per direction, another three special lanes have been planned on both sides to accommodate the slow moving vehicles. However, slow-moving traffic will not be allowed in the toll lanes.’’

Significantly, out of the 32 lanes, four lanes in the centre would be ‘reversible lanes’. This means, according to the requirements of the volume of traffic flow, lanes on either side could be changed to the configuration of 18 lanes and 14 lanes per direction.

Khan claimed that there will be three different colour schemes for three different kinds of tolling systems. The lanes with orange signage would be for those vehicles which would have a smart tag attached on the inside of the windshield and expressway. These lanes will be unmanned and will be in the middle of the toll plaza. The lane with blue signage would be for commuters using a prepaid card called the Contactless Smart Card (CSC) with a transaction time of under 3.5 seconds.

With touch and go technology, the commuter has to stop and manually swipe the card without worrying about carrying cash for paying toll.The lane with green signage would be the cash lane and the commuter would have to stop and pay cash at the counter.

‘‘The cameras installed would generate photographs of all vehicles at the toll plaza. This would not only ensure 100% revenue collection, even local police can get the details of stolen vehicles which pass through this stretch,’’ said an NHAI official.

Besides tolling, SOS phones installed at every 2km on the highway would help the users to contact control room in case of any emergency. ‘‘ While on an average the light system would be of 40 lux throughout the stretch,’’said Khan, ‘‘the lighting at the toll plaza would be 100 lux, which means the lighting on ground would be much more than that of any well lit drawing room.’’

Khan added that in order to give the expressway a unique character, the entire expressway has been divided into three zones. The stretch from RTR Palam to DelhiGurgaon border would be the VIP segment and white light bulbs will be used with 12 meter inclined poles. The developer would install CCTV cameras till IGI airport for surveillance of these areas.

The urban segment, which stretches from Delhi-Gurgaon border to Rajiv Chowk, will be using green light fixures and the third phase from Rajiv Chowk to the place where toll road ends would be known as the trucker’s paradise. The colour scheme for this stretch will be orange.