Environmental Aspects of Toll Plazas & Vehicular Pollution

The study aims to encapsulate the effects of toll plazas on environment. It is intended to outline various environmental aspects that are of serious concern and should be looked upon necessarily to curtail their long term ill effects on environment and humans. The rapid development in urban India has resulted in a tremendous increase in the number of motor vehicles. Air pollution is a serious environmental health threat to humans. Adverse effects range from nausea, difficulty in breathing and skin irritations, birth defects, immunosuppression and cancer. Air pollution, particularly in the form of particulate matter, is a serious challenge in India, and transportation is a significant factor in the nation’s air quality problems. According to the 2017 Global Burden of Disease, some 1.1 million people in India die prematurely each year from diseases directly related to air pollution, making it the fifth leading cause of death in the country. Transportation sources account for approximately a third of PM pollution in India, and a somewhat higher proportion of nitrogen oxides, another set of compounds harmful to human health. Because its vehicle fleet is small relative to its large population, India has very low per capita transportation emissions. But that fleet is growing rapidly: total vehicle sales (including motorcycles) increased from about 10 million in 2007 to over 21 million in2016, and the total number of vehicles on the road is expected to nearly double to about 200 million by 2030. All these situations indicate that air pollution becoming a major problem in Indian context and there is an essential need to build up healthy environment and increase the level of research around the world. The study is based on the case study results from one of the toll plaza’s (KACHKOOT TOLL PLAZA) in j&k,India .. Keywords: (Air pollution, Vehicular emission, Carcinogenicity ,Air Quality Index, Toll, Diseases)

Application of Data-Driven Safety Analysis to Support Port Authority Investment Decisions for Converting Conventional Toll Plazas to Open-Road Tolling

Capital improvement projects have the potential to enhance safety, mobility, and environmental quality, but these projects can include considerable costs. When making investment decisions, it is important for agencies to understand the costs in relation to the potential benefits. For several years, transportation agencies have analyzed and quantified the operational and environmental impacts of proposed projects. More recently, the first edition of the Highway Safety Manual and related resources have provided agencies with the tools needed to quantify the safety impacts of proposed projects. This paper describes the use of data-driven safety analysis methods by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to quantify the direct and indirect safety benefits of the proposed conversion of conventional toll plazas to open-road tolling. The analysis estimated the direct safety benefits (i.e., change in the number of crashes) and indirect safety benefits (i.e., change in travel time, fuel costs, and emissions resulting from crashes). These changes were converted to dollars, providing an estimate of the present value benefits based on the expected service life of the enhanced toll systems. The analysis indicated the conversions could reduce crashes by more than 900 annually, including the prevention of nearly 30 injury crashes annually. Indirect safety benefits included more than 200,000 h in reduced travel time, 335,000 gal of fuel saved, and nearly 3,000 metric tons of CO2 reduced annually. Over the 15-year life cycle, this would provide an estimated benefit of more than $200 million from crashes directly and $367 million in indirect benefits.

Financing Roads through Tolls in Nigeria: The Role of Public-Private Partnerships

Nearly 18 years after the Government of Nigeria dismantled toll plazas along the country’s highways, there is renewed interest by the present administration to re-introduce toll roads to help finance the construction, repairs and maintenance of the highways. This has been met with predictable opposition from different interest groups around the country. This paper notes that using tolls as a means of financing highways is not a particularly bad strategy, as there are several benefits that could accrue to the country from its use. However, the manner in which the proposed tolling appears to be structured will not resolve all the issues bedevilling the Nigerian road sector. For greater impact and sustainability, the financing of some of the major roads should be done in partnership with the private sector, through Public-Private Partnerships. This paper acknowledges the peculiar difficulties inherent in the use of tolls to finance roads in Nigeria and suggests policies that are required to make it successful.

Automatic Toll Collection System and Detection of Theft Vehicle by using RFID

The road transportation in India has growing day by day. The Indian road network carries about 65 percent of its Goods and about 85 percent of passengers. The national highways in India are now increased from 44,076 miles to 88,313 miles in 2018 to 2019. Along these road networks there are about 450 toll plazas totally in India. These toll plazas contribute some major part of India’s economy, it is estimated the toll revenue can swell up to 1 lakh crore rupees in next five years. In spite of this enormous growth the toll plazas have huge traffic during peak most of the time which incurs delay and loss human hours to surpass the toll. The proposed system focuses on an automatic toll collection system which will automatically debit the amount from vehicle owner’s bank. The automated registration and collection are based on using the RFID chip which is amalgamated in the vehicle’s windshield. By this method, the information about registration ID of the vehicle can be obtained therefore stolen vehicle can also be detected by this system as the vehicle ID is linked to the user’s account. Thus, this system provides fast and efficient surpassing of toll plazas without any delay.

A Model Tree-Based Vehicle Emission Model at Freeway Toll Plazas

With the increased concern over sustainable development, many efforts have been made to alleviate air quality deterioration. Freeway toll plazas can cause serious pollution, due to the increased emissions caused by stop-and-go operations. Different toll collections and different fuel types obviously influence the vehicle emissions at freeway toll plazas. Therefore, this paper proposes a model tree-based vehicle emission model by considering these factors. On-road emissions data and vehicle operation data were obtained from two different freeway toll plazas. The statistical analysis indicates that different methods of toll collection and fuel types have significant impacts on vehicle emissions at freeway toll plazas. The performance of the proposed model was compared with a polynomial regression method. Based on the results, the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), root mean squared error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE) of the proposed model were all smaller, while the R-squared value increased from 0.714 to 0.833. Finally, the variations of vehicle emissions at different locations of freeway toll plazas were calculated and shown in heat maps. The results of this study can help better estimate the vehicle emissions and give advice to the development of electronic toll collection (ETC) lanes and relevant policies at freeway toll plazas.

Automated Toll Booth using Morphological Edge Detection Algorithm

In order to reduce the traffic jam, save time and to diminish the money loss of 300 crores/year, an automated system is proposed; The intelligent traffic control management systems which explains the installation of automation in toll plazas, which is a step towards improving the monitoring of vehicles. The main purpose of this arrangement is to implement a system, which automatically identifies an approaching vehicle and records the vehicles number and time. If the vehicle belongs to an authorized person, the toll gate opens automatically and a predetermined amount is deducted from the user account, which leads to reduce the Traffic clogging at toll plazas. The vehicle number plate recognition is done only for authorized members. The proposed model consists of image digitization, edge detection, character detection and recognition with the payment transaction. The proposed method uses morphological edge detection , for the system to identify the character recognition and it uses template matching; it is done for license plates of 6 characters. The license plate character recognition system can be used in vehicle check -in and checkout monitoring system in hotels, malls and can be used to track vehicles on normal roads other than toll booths to avoid thefts.