Steps to ease traffic on expressway on the anvil

 A meeting on Wednesday decided that a bouquet of solutions ought to be implemented to decongest traffic at Sirhaul toll on the expressway in Gurgaon.

The three-hour meeting was attended by senior officials of the Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Ltd (DGSCL), National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), district administration and the traffic police.

The meeting discussed a host of solutions to relieve the toll plaza of the chock-a-block situation during rush hours.

The first solution, which allegedly did not find much support from the NHAI, was to acquire more land around the plaza so as to add more lanes. “For this, we need support of both HUDA and NHAI. HUDA is supportive to our demand but the NHAI opposes the idea. As a result, the only way to add more lanes is to introduce the staggered lanes,” says a DGSCL official.

The official also says that the idea of staggered kiosks at the toll plaza was mooted long ago but it was acknowledged only after the High Court ordered a stay on toll collection for 15 days until September 20. 

He said staggered toll lanes is a concept wherein a few lanes will be made free and the toll will be charged at a distance of 100 metres from the current plaza. This is expected to solve the traffic congestion problem in a staggered manner.

The second solution is to strictly enforce the lane discipline under which cash users will be penalised on entering the tag lanes. This is expected to ensure faster movement of traffic.

The third solutions is to introduce touch and go cards which can be used for motorists using cash lanes now.

Lastly, the DGSCL also plans to close the U-turn near Ambience Mall which is used by the twowheelers to move to the expressway, though they are not allowed to use it.   

Deccan Herald pointed out to a DGSCL official that several such cosmetic steps (of blocking U-turns and division of lanes between cash and tag users) had already been taken but that did not help decongest traffic much.

The official replied: “The current average weekday traffic is close to two lakh car units while only 45 per cent of them use tag while others pay cash at the toll. We want these people to shift to touch-and-go cards so that the traffic snarls can be minimised.”