When ATMs were first installed in India, I was told that they were stand-alone units and not integrated with the rest of the systems in the bank. So the cash withdrawals were recorded in the machine and manually entered into ledgers the next day.

One sees a similar situation in some shops even today where the invoice is made out in triplicate with a computer at the sales counter, and then manually checked by the cashier at the time of payment, and multiple receipts are given to be presented at different places in the store. The poor computer is dumbed down to be a typewriter.

How technology is used as a part of a system depends on the objectives of the system, which unfortunately may be designed keeping in mind a very intransigent union that does not want jobs to be lost even at the cost of efficiency.

When you drive through a toll booth on the Chennai-Bengaluru highway, you will notice about three people engaged with every vehicle that passes through. A speed bump will first slow you down.

MADRAS TO MASSACHUSSETTS

There is the person in the toll booth who collects the cash and issues the receipt. There is a man standing in the lane who asks you if you want to pay for a one-way use or return, and acts as the interlocutor between the driver and the cash collector.

A third person is sitting a few yards ahead at the side of the lane, with a big register open on his lap, noting down something – probably the licence number.

At some toll plazas, I have seen a fourth do-gooder who is wandering across the lanes as you approach the plaza directing people into different lanes.

Not many drivers seem to pay attention to him. In a well designed system, with limited use of technology, one person at the booth could do the job.

If a part of the objective of a toll roadway system is to provide employment (like MNREGA), then we are doing an excellent job of it. The slow movement of vehicles becomes secondary and a price to pay.

But since collection of tolls was a way to recover costs of construction and/or provide a return for the private partner in the enterprise, one would assume that increasing the efficiency is not a minor concern. Massachusetts has recently decided to do away with its toll booths on the Mass Pike, a major east-west highway. For a few years now, there was a hybrid system where a couple of dedicated lanes were meant for vehicles with transponders who could drive through at a slower speed and the camera would recognise the transponder’s identity and deduct the toll charge from the account of the user at the time of exit.

The remaining booths were meant for individuals without transponders to slow down and take a ticket when entering the highway, and at the exit, to pay a booth attendant. During busy times, vehicles would back-up, causing frustrating delays.

The plan being implemented now is to eliminate all booths and its attendants, and replace them with a high speed camera system.

No one needs to slow down. If you don’t own a transponder, the camera will photograph your licence plate and you will be sent a bill by mail.

The objectives behind the change over are to improve the speed at which vehicles can pass through the toll booths, apart from reducing operating costs. Fewer vehicles slowing down and waiting at the toll booth will also reduce exhaust gases and thereby reduce pollution.

DIFFERENT CONDITIONS

The Massachusetts plan requires a lot of other systems running in the background to function efficiently. There needs to be power available continuously for the cameras to function.

All vehicle licence plates need to be in the same part of the vehicle and visible for the camera to be able to capture the image.

The Registrar of Motor Vehicles must be maintaining up to date records of the addresses of all registered vehicles and needs to be coordinated across the country since the motor vehicle registry is a State function and systems vary across States.

The post office is expected to deliver the bill promptly. If a vehicle owner does not pay on time, the vehicle records would be flagged so he or she would be hailed down at some time on the road by a sharp-eyed police officer who may then levy a punitive fine or even issue a warrant of arrest. Missing links, or weak links anywhere along the way would of course lead to poor collections, poor efficiencies, and defeat the objectives of the system.

In the absence of these back-up systems, we should not even think of eliminating toll collectors on the Chennai-Bengaluru highway. But surely, the cost of employing three or four people where a better trained and better paid one can do the job, would save the organisation salaries and help in speeding up the pass through of the vehicles.

The efficiencies may even be passed on to the motorists through reduction in toll rates, so it is in everybody’s interests that the toll system is managed well.

(The author is presently a professor and dean of the Jindal Global Business School, Sonepat, Haryana.)

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