Soon, zoom into Chandigarh’s parking lots with FASTag

In a bid to make paid parking hassle-free, the UT administration has decided to introduce FASTag at all parkings lots managed by the municipal corporation and is also actively considering to allow free parking for two-wheelers.

UT adviser Dharam Pal gave directions in this regard to the officials concerned at a recent meeting on the city’s parking management.

Sharing details, Pal said, “As part of the new system, there will be no physical payment of parking fee. It will be deducted automatically through FASTag. There will be no need of keeping the entry-exit points manned. The automatic payments will help save time and eliminate traffic snarls at these points. The boom barrier at the entry/exit points will be linked with FASTag for automatic operation.”

As FASTag is already mandatory for using the national highways, the administration expects its immediate adoption by car owners in Chandigarh, which will become the first city in the country to introduce the technology at local parking level.

“Nearly 100% cars in the city have FASTag installed. On our end, we only need to have the right equipment at the parking lots. I have directed the officials concerned to initiate the process for its installation,” said Pal.

As two-wheelers don’t use FASTag, the administration is considering making parking free for these vehicles.

Parking for electric vehicles (EVs) is already free, as decided by the administration under its EV policy. No fee is levied for parking cycles either.

“We are examining the issue of making parking free for two-wheelers. The financial implications are being studied. Another option is to make separate entry/exit for two-wheelers,” the adviser said.

The administration is also examining the option to incorporate pick and drop under the FASTag-based parking system.

Notably, the adviser had previously listed improving the parking system in the city as one of his priority areas. He had also made surprise visits to the parking lots to examine the smart parking system. Finding many issues, he had directed the MC to make immediate improvements.

89 parking lots in city

There are 89 parking lots in Chandigarh, with two contractors managing their operations through two zones. A total of 32 lots are part of Zone 1 and the remaining 57 of Zone 2. An estimated 22,725 equivalent car spaces (ECS) are available at these parking lots spread over 5.22 lakh square metres.

The working of these contractors has been under scanner for some time, and they have been repeatedly penalised for several shortcomings. Over-charging the vehicle owners for parking has been one of the main grounds for imposition of penalties on the contractors. Also, during peak hours, there is often chaos at entry/exit points due to delay in payment transactions. The traffic snarls at parking lots spill over to the adjacent roads, creating further traffic disruptions.

Though the contractors are mandated to convert the lots into smart parking, even after several years, smart parking has yet to be made operational completely. The smart features include e-ticketing, HD night-vision CCTV cameras, smart card passes, LED display of real-time occupancy and online booking of parking space.

Recently, RITES (Rail India Technical and Economic Service) after its survey of city’s parking system had also listed several problems with it.

It had pointed out that there is no real-time tracking or data/report for analysis of the parking lots. Commuters waste considerable time in searching for a vacant parking spot, which causes traffic congestion, further leading to stress on users and pollution. Highlighting sub-optimal utilisation of space, RITES had also pointed out lack of flexibility in parking charges. Among its various suggestions was introduction of an easy payment mechanism