MEP Infrastructure reduces bottle-neck traffic on Mumbai’s sea link

MEP Infrastructure Developers is a Mumbai-based toll management and infrastructure operator for central and state road authorities in the country. It operates out of 12 states and works on maintenance of highways, roads, bridges. The company runs with over 3000 employees.

The challenge

The Bandra-Worli Sea Link is in use since 2009. The cable-supported sea link connects commuters to both corners of the metro city. MEP records a daily commute of around 50,000 people every day. This infrastructural implementation cuts down travel-time of over 60-90 minutes to half the time spent.

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To take this implementation to the next level the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) equipped with Radio Frequency Identification tags, came into action and while this reduced the amount of time commuters stopped at the toll, the payment and recharge process caused delays. This crucial roadway link in the finacial hub of the contry would often have long lanes of vehicles queue-up and causing congestion and bottle-neck traffic.  

The solution  

For smarter infrastructure management, with thousands of commuters a day it was time to digitize the payment process and increase the number of ETC lanes to clear the traffic situation throughout the day.

By March 2016, Citrus Pay went live as a payment gateway for the ETC. Along with Citrus Pay, PayTM and Reliance Jio are on board to ensure smooth payment processes. Also, the user data has been saved as secured codes at the backend where the US-based transportation RFID company, Neology is in charge.

The benefits

This infrastructure strategy has not only eased traffic but brought in convenience to these commuters who can opt for the cashless mode at the toll. Now, 25,000 new commuters have been able recharge for the ETC from anywhere, ever since.  “The prime benefit for the customers has to do with easing out the traffic situation from the toll plaza, and this is happening now,” says Sainath Gurav, director- Subsidary and CIO, MEP Infrastructure Developers. 

Since the three players, PayTM, Cirtrus Pay and Reliance Jio are on board, the customer experience has been tracked. This means, it has become easy to understand the perspective of the commuters and therefore understand the challenges. With a prompt customer service, it has also been possible to make the commuters aware about the need of such a system since many are apprehensive of the toll collection in the first place. “From 1500 customers in August 2012, we now have a total of around 32000 customers becuase these tags were promoted by these players in the last four years,” says Gurav.