Following a report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Affairs pertaining to traffic congestion, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is likely to introduce Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system as a pilot project. This would enable deduction of road usage charges electronically from prepaid cards when the vehicles enter congested areas.
Expressing concern over traffic congestion, the Parliamentary Committee headed by Pinaki Mishra had directed the Ministry to explore the feasibility of ERP system and submit a report within three months from the date of presentation of this report to Parliament.
Singapore is the first country to adopt ERP system, which it did in 1998, to implement electronic toll collection to manage traffic. Interestingly, the Delhi Government’s Transport Department in its draft policy on parking has suggested enhanced parking charges during peak hours and off peak hours in market places.
The Ministry has refused to say anything on the specific aspect of the recommendation of the Committee to conduct a feasibility study on ERP system towards decongesting urban roads in India. The Ministry is also silent whether the pilot project would be implemented in Delhi or some other metropolitan cities.
In Delhi, which has 1.12 crore registered vehicles, a congestion tax has been a matter of debate. “It is important for Delhi to first establish a robust and dependable public transport system as a viable alternative for those switching from private vehicles to public modes of transport before it can consider something like a congestion tax.
Officials say that Singapore has been able to ease traffic congestion in the city centre despite the continued growth in car population. “Based on a pay-as-you-use principle, motorists are charged when they use priced roads during peak hours.
ERP rates vary for roads and time periods depending on local traffic conditions. This encourages motorists to change their mode of transport, travel route or time of travel,” the officials said. The process of levying the tax is automatic. A device known as an in-vehicle unit (IU) is fixed on the lower right corner of the front windscreen within sight of the driver. A stored-value cash card is inserted into it for payment. The tax gets deducted depending on location and time.
According to officials, the Ministry had issued National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) way back in 2006 and ERP system was the part of the measures for tackling the issue of rising number of vehicles on the roads and parking.
For this, the committee also recommended to conduct pilot studies for ERP system for reducing Road traffic in highly congested areas of metropolitan and other big cities.
The Government should also introduce pre-paid cards for the vehicles to be read and deduct the amount electronically when the vehicles enter the designated congested areas. The committee is of the view that parking charges in metropolitan cities and other bigger cities should be commensurate with the facilities available at the parking sites and as well as according to the congestion level in that particular area of the city.”
A former Delhi Government’s Transport Commissioner, who had taken voluntarily retirement, said on the condition of anonymity that during the Sheila Dikshit regime, a proposal was made to this effect but it could not be implemented. A high-level team of the Delhi Government had visited Singapore to study its ERP system.
“Singapore introduced a road congestion tax way back in 1975 and implemented it first through the Area licensing System which levied a flat charge on all vehicles entering the central business district. In 1998, this was replaced by the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system which leverages technology to allow for a more effective and flexible method of congestion charging. The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology used also allows automatic deduction of the charge on any vehicle passing a road pricing gantry. As a result, despite having one of the highest per capita incomes in Asia, only 32 per cent of Singaporean households owned cars in 2010,” he said.