Lonavala: FastTag Server Shuts Down At Varsoli Toll Plaza, Causes Major Traffic Jam
Lonavala, 9th February 2023: As the FastTag server at Varsoli toll plaza on Mumbai-Pune’s old national highway was shut down from 1 am, buses were not allowed from the toll plaza since midnight. Due to this, there was a huge traffic jam on the national highway and the queues of vehicles went up to a distance of eight to 10 kilometres.
All the school students going to school in the morning session, milkmen, and labourers were all affected by this traffic jam. Many people could not go to school due to the lack of vehicles. Many students could not reach for the exam on time due to the commencement of class 10 practice papers. As the school van did not arrive on time due to the traffic jam, the students had to go to the school on their parents’ two-wheelers on dirt roads. But due to the delay in the paper, they too had to suffer a lot.
Hundreds of students from the Kamshet to Vaksai Chal areas are going to Lonavala for their education, and all of them had to bear the brunt of today’s traffic jam and the mismanagement of the IRB company. After opening some lanes for small vehicles sometime in the morning, the traffic jam came under control.
Because the data for fast tag suddenly started showing the blacklist for all the vehicles, the vehicles were not being scanned. All the systems were trying to solve the problem but the problem was not solved. Meanwhile, as there was no fast tag scanning, toll collection started at midnight by taking cash from some vehicle drivers and keeping some vehicles stopped. Due to this, queues of vehicles went up to a distance of eight to 10 kilometres in the morning till daylight. School children got stuck, school vans got stuck, workers and milk businessmen were all disturbed by this, while the IRB company and its employees were busy collecting tolls by obstructing the drivers.
Even if there was such a traffic jam, none of the Highway Police or Lonavla Rural Police was present in the area to solve it or to find a middle way. To avoid such incidents in the future, at least in the morning session, the drivers-owners and parents of the vehicles transporting the citizens and school children have demanded that one lane should be kept free at the Varsoli toll booth for the vehicles transporting local workers, dairymen and school children.
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