Many of us living in Delhi-NCR
have cumulatively spent hours waiting at the NH-8 Delhi-Gurgaon Toll Plaza.
photo courtesy: tribuneindia.com
I ran a short calculation as I
was waiting at the toll plaza this Saturday afternoon.
How much it costs you as a car
owner:
· Average waiting time for each car (to get from
end of queue to toll point) = 10 minutes
·
Rule of thumb: For every 2 minutes spent idling,
your car consumes the same amount of fuel it takes to go one km.
·
Average mileage of Car= 10 km/l or 0.1 l/km
·
Delhi Petrol price = Rs 70/ liter
·
So in 10 minutes of idling your car consumes = (10/2) x 0.1 liters = 0.5 liter of petrol = Rs 35!
·
Total cost of crossing toll plaza = Idling cost
+ Toll = 35 + 21 = Rs 56!
How much it costs us as a
community:
· Number of lanes = 18 each way
·
Total number of lanes = 18 X 2= 36
·
Average Number of cars waiting in each lane= 25
·
Total Number of cars idling at the Toll plaza at
any given time = 25 x 36 = 900
·
From the previous calculation, each car is
consuming 0.1 l every 2 minutes of idling = 0.05 l/min
·
Fuel being exhausted by all idling cars at toll
plaza = 0.05 x 900 = 45 l/min!
45 liters of petrol
are being poured down the drain EVERY minute at the Delhi-Gurgaon toll plaza!
The situation gets worse at night
time when the idling vehicles are trucks which are even less efficient. If we
consider 8 hours of such traffic each day, the toll-plaza consumes 21,600 liters of petrol a day.
Any technological recommendations
to solve this problem? The tag lanes don’t seem to be working very well.
2 comments:
Number one teach impatient drivers of daily lane driving as most of the time. People paying cash enter tag lanes and create nuisance. Secondly people cross lanes while waiting adding to additional jams. Thirdly help of technology. All daily commuters taxi's and truckers need buy chips which can be recharged monthly biweekly basis. Once this is enable toll will automatically will be deducted. In case somebody crosses without the chip information passed to nearest PCR Van person is chased and fined 20 times and license suspension after 3 such consecutive attempts. Also to stop police officials taking bribes give them incentive from the heavy fine collected. That is the only way to save 21600 liters of fuel but implementation with indiscipline people and also from Govt Authorities will be a challenge
now imagine if all these cars had a solar panel on the roof ....
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