PALAKKAD: There were traffic bottlenecks at Walayar toll plaza on the Walayar-Vadakkenchery stretch of Palakkad-Thrissur national highway 544 on the first day of the implementation of the FASTag system on Wednesday.
In the morning, the Walayar toll plaza ( KNR Tollways Walayar Ltd) authorities had left only two (one for entry and one for exit) out of the 10 lanes for those vehicles which did not have FASTags, resulting in long queues.
The vehicles that arrived from the Coimbatore side suffered the most.However, by 10.30 am, four lanes (two lanes for entry and two for exit) were made available for cash payments. Thus, six lanes were reserved for FASTag vehicles. In spite of this, there were only very few vehicles with FASTags. It resulted in swift movement of vehicles through the six lanes for vehicles which had switched to the electronic toll payment mode.
However, there was not much rush on the lanes reserved for outward traffic to the Coimbatore side. The toll plaza authorities said that the rush could be heavy on Thursday after the Pongal holidays.
The FASTag system which was scheduled to be implemented on December 15 was delayed to facilitate the transition. But even now, it seems that only 30 per cent of vehicles have adopted the system. Those who have not switched had to pay double the cash.
Double trouble
Even now, it seems that only 30 per cent of vehicles have adopted the FASTag system. Those who have not switched to FASTag mode had to pay double the toll to pass through the plaza