GPS toll collection system to replace FASTags soon: Here's what you should know

FASTags may soon become redundant as the GPS toll collection system may replace them. Sometime back, the Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari, revealed that the government is working on new technologies for toll collection, including the GPS-based toll collection system. He hinted that the GPS toll collection system will replace the toll plazas, which means the FASTag-based toll collection system may become obsolete.

For the unversed, the GPS toll collection system is already in the pilot stage and has been implemented on some highways. This also includes the newly inaugurated Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Trans harbour link road or Atal Setu in Mumbai.

What is the new GPS toll collection system and how it works?

The GPS-based toll collection system is a new way of toll collection that Minister Gadkari first announced in December 2023.

“The government is looking at new technologies, including GPS-based toll systems to replace toll plazas in the country…we will start new GPS satellite-based toll collection across the country by March next year.”

The GPS toll collection system scans the number plate of the moving vehicles and charges toll fees. This works with the help of several cameras on the highways and the Automatic number-plate-recognition (ANPR) systems.

One of the major advantages of such a toll collection system is that vehicles don’t have to stop by toll plazas, saving plenty of time. The number plate of vehicles will be scanned on the move and the toll fees will be deducted from the linked bank accounts.

GPS toll collection vs FASTags

For the FASTag toll collection system, there are RFID-enabled barriers placed at the toll plazas that scan the FASTag IDs on vehicles to deduct toll fees.

FASTags were implemented to save time and they did. Earlier in 2018-19, the waiting time for the vehicles at toll plazas was approximately 8 minutes. But with FASTAGs, the waiting time was reduced to 47 seconds. However, due to issues like no FASTag balance or long queues in some cases, the traffic congestion remained near the toll booths.

As for the GPS toll collection system, vehicles won’t have to stop at all at toll plazas as the cameras will do the job of capturing the vehicle’s number plate and deducting the toll fees. This will eliminate long queues, allowing vehicles to reach their destination as fast as possible.

The GPS toll collection system is expected to be implemented on most highways in India by early April this year.