Electronic Toll Collection

Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) lanes on toll roads in India are an interesting phenomenon. They appear to deliver no benefit to any of the stakeholders. The drivers of cars equipped with ETC Tags have to sit behind a non ETC car that is arguing with the toll booth operator. The Toll Operators cannot move to a fully automated lane because there will be non ETC drivers trying to go through the ETC lane. The ETC Only lane in effect becomes an ETC-also lane.

I have been thinking about how Toll Operators could solve this problem. Given the challenges we face in India as discussed above, here is the solution I would like to propose.

The first change would be where the ETC only lane is located. In most civilized countries, ETC lanes are the fast lanes where drivers need barely slow down for the tag reader to read the car tag and to deduct toll charges. In India, we might want to locate the ETC lane at the slowest end, i.e. on the left side of the road and build two exits past the toll collection device, one that leads back to the road and the other that leads to a run-off area where you can hold and deal with the non-payers. The barrier at the toll-gate would need to be programmed to open in one of two directions: to channel traffic back to the road if the toll has been collected or to open the other way to direct cars to the holding area if the toll cannot be collected electronically in say 5 seconds. 

If the procedure in the holding area involves big burly men to argue with and a solid locked gate manned by a suitably large giant to let people out only after they have paid the toll through a suitably arcane time wasting procedure, drivers might eventually learn that it is not worth their time to try and sneak past the ETC lane without an ETC tag. Save for the odd MP with a shot-gun of course.