Sukhad Yatra – the new highway-utilities mobile application from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) – has been downloaded nearly 100,000 times since its launch on March 7, 2018. The mobile application was created to ease highway travel and aid in maintaining road infrastructure.
Designed and developed by ComVision (India) Pvt. Ltd., the highway-utilities application uses satellite GPS to provide accurate navigation and location-tracking services to highway users. To this end, Sukhad Yatra has several built-in tools including Nearby Toll Plaza(s), Toll Plaza Enroute, Buy FASTag, Know Your Highway, Near By, Report An Issue, Report Summary, and Rate Us.
- Nearby Toll Plaza(s) fetches information on the nearest Toll gates at the national highways the user is on. It helps travellers find their way to the Toll booth accurately and re-route at any time if travelling in the wrong route. The tool also displays the standard tariffs of the plazas.
- Toll Plaza Enroute uses satellite GPS to locate all Toll booths situated on the way to the destination, and check the applicable tariffs almost instantly.
- Buy FASTag – NHAI–FASTag collaboration – allows motorists to buy FASTag stickers from the app, use its integrated RFID services at Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) lanes, and make automated electronic payments before reaching the Toll gate.
- Know Your Highway displays the name of the highway they are on, and the highway they must choose if they want to travel between two stations. It helps users pre-plan their route.
- Near By locates the restaurants, hotels, fuel stations, hospitals, ATMs, and other services near to the user’s coordinates on the highway.
- Report An Issue, Report Summary, and Rate Us, the application’s feedback mechanism, allow motorists to register their grievances against the operations of any highway Toll authority or service. Complaints registered via Report An Issue are stored in a centralised database and addressed quickly. The feedback system also allows users to rate the app in order to help developers improve the service.
To paraphrase, the app will tell users the precise waiting time at Toll complexes, enable them to use ETC lanes, locate civic amenities along highways, help them route and re-route, and register infrastructure- and transparency-related complaints.
Besides launching Sukhad Yatra, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways also rolled out a highway toll-free emergency helpline – 1033 – for reporting highway emergencies, road infrastructure issues, and other incidents. Up until now, the country had separate helpline numbers for each Toll plaza. This meant thousands of phone numbers in the user’s directory and slower response rates. The emergency helpline replaces all those numbers and acts as a single point-of-contact for all Toll gates in India.
1033 is also a part of NHAI’s Incident Management System (or Advanced Traffic Management System), which integrates information technology to make highways safe for motorists.
Sukhad Yatra and 1033 are two among the Central government’s five-point list of projects – district-driving training centres, road safety advocate awards, Multi-Modal Transport System, emergency helpline, and highway-utilities mobile app – to provide safety to commuters and bring transparency to the highways sector. The rest of the projects are yet to be launched.