Rain, Ramdev choke e-way, extra windows of no help

GURGAON: Traffic moved at a snail's pace at the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway toll plaza during peak hours on Monday %in spite of the extra windows put up by the private concessionaire.
Punjab and Haryana high court had recently ordered the concessionaire, DSC Ltd, to put up extra kiosks at the toll plaza to reduce traffic congestion.
The concessionaire said it was experimenting with various combinations and the results would be documented and presented to Punjab and Haryana high court on the next date of hearing.
While during the morning peak hours, extra kiosks were put up for Delhi traffic entering Gurgaon, it was done on the opposite during the evening. The functioning of extra kiosks was hampered in the evening by the rain.
Rain and Baba Ramdev's rally in Delhi played spoilsport for commuters during evening hours. The private agency staff abandoned the canopy-like temporary structures when it started raining. The kiosks were found abandoned for one hour. Later, a spokesperson confirmed that kiosks could not function properly due to the rain. The service was restored around 7pm.
Due to rain the canopies with waterproof shelters were abandoned by the officials. The mobile ticketing then started at around 7pm where personnel in four canopies along with one extra official standing between the toll and each canopy (totalling six booths) with the mobile ticketing device on seven lanes on the Gurgaon side of the expressway stood for toll collection.
A spokesperson said five officials each stood on five lanes with handheld machines during morning hours. Bumper-to-bumper traffic were seen both in the morning and evening. The private concessionaire is hopeful of finding the right permutation to reduce jams.
A spokesperson added, "We have experimented with the configuration suggested by the high court to process a batch of six vehicles simultaneously by setting up five additional remote terminals prior to the fixed booth in the cash lanes (5 plus 1 toll booth), besides putting up three plus one toll booth in the 10 cash lanes by setting up temporary kiosks in each of the cash lanes during peak hours. Apart from these two configurations, we have also experimented with other permutations. About 100 additional staff was deployed to ensure that these experiments were conducted properly.
Some configurations are more effective than others and the comparative data is being collated to assess the most effective tolling configuration and the findings would be submitted to the high court," said the spokesperson.