NEW DELHI, October 6 — The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Tuesday achieved a technological breakthrough in smart highway management by operationalizing India's first commercial Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) barrierless electronic toll collection system across the 82-kilometre Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME).
Under the modernized tolling architecture deployed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, conventional physical toll booths and mechanical boom barriers have been dismantled. In their place, high-speed overhead cantilever gantries fitted with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) optical cameras and high-precision RFID readers capture FASTag transponders at cruising speeds up to 120 kmph, executing instantaneous automated debiting from linked customer bank accounts without vehicular deceleration.
Highway engineering authorities reported that the elimination of physical toll stops prevents traffic bottlenecks, curbing localized vehicle idling emissions and generating aggregate fuel savings estimated at millions of litres annually. Following the successful operational stabilization on the DME, NHAI announced plans to scale MLFF gantries across the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, the operational phases of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, and the Bangalore-Chennai corridor within eighteen months.
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), RFID and ANPR technologies, highway logistics economics, and the statutory governance of NHAI under the National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988, are high-utility topics in the UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Infrastructure & Technology) and civil engineering examinations. Candidates should note that NHAI functions as an autonomous statutory authority under MoRTH, and electronic toll collection under the unified 'One Nation, One FASTag' framework was mandated nationwide in December 2019.