Automate toll collection to free congestion

Do access-controlled roads within the city make sense from a traffic point of view? Not, if the vehicles are made to wait in long queues at the toll-booths, as a senior police official who headed the city's traffic police puts it.
If such roads are indeed necessary, the toll collection could be automated, says M A Saleem, former Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic. He draws attention to the Singapore model, where the toll and congestion tax are deducted electronically from passing vehicles by sensors placed overhead.

This would negate the need for toll booths, which could otherwise trigger massive congestion within the city. Eventually, this could defeat the purpose of an access-controlled tolled road, which is to quickly bypass the congested toll-free roads.

Saleem reminds that in all the three existing tolled roads, the collection is far away from the city centre. Long queues there will not be a burden on the other city roads. “The toll booth on the Elevated Hosur Road is at Electronics City, while the booth on Tumakuru Road is near Nelamangala, about 20 km from the city,” he points out.

But have these tolled roads decongested the city roads? The city traffic police top brass says they just about manage to regulate the traffic below the tolled roads. However, it gets tough at intersections where these access-controlled roads unload traffic. The congestion at the Silk Board junction, a few metres from the mouth of the Electronics City Elevated toll-way is a case in point.