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Harbour Bridge closer to digital credit toll system
While Guyana is not going to get another Demerara River bridge for at least another two years, the management of the current one is not standing still when it comes to measures to ease the congestion.
General Manager of the DHBC, Rawlston Adams
In fact, the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC) has started testing out a new credit system for government entities that will reduce waiting time.
A number of government vehicles are now affixed with radio-frequency identification (RFID) which uses electro-magnetic fields to automatically identify the vehicles.
Speaking on Tuesday on ‘The Legal Mind’ hosted on Kaieteur Radio, 99.1 and 99.5fm, General Manager Rawlston Adams explained that the corporation has started implementation of a new toll collection, in a limited way, with a full rollout later this year.
Currently, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and the Customs Anti Narcotics Unit (CANU) are the entities participating.
The Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation says it is closer to introducing a new credit toll system with the air to reduce congestion.
In the past, state entities would drive up and the clerk at the toll booth would have to issue a receipt manually, leading to delays. The RFID tags would trigger an automatic receipt to be printed.
But that is not all. The bridge is also in talks with third parties for the introduction of systems similar to the US where drivers and vehicle owners can actually purchase credit in advance and use this to traverse the bridge.
This will happen “very, very soon”, Adams said. Accompanying him on the show was Traffic Coordinator of the bridge, Hazelu Richardson.
Explaining, Adams said that under the credit system, customers will be able to monitor their balance and top-up. The system will cut a few minutes in transaction time on the harbour bridge.
Almost 20,000 use the bridge daily.
Some 41 years old, the bridge is struggling to keep up with the volume of traffic.
Each year, more than 10,000 vehicles are registered for use on the roadways with no new highways built recently.
Government is banking on a new bridge, expected to cost upwards of US$300M, to reduce the congestion that occurs each day on the East and West Demerara area, because of that one bridge.
With most of the jobs, and government offices in the city, the situation has been becoming worse each day.
To deal with congestion, the harbour bridge corporation and police have been closing the bridge to one-way traffic at peak times, with the East Bank road converted to three lanes at the same time.
But there is only so much that a new toll structure, or lane closures can do, the officials said Tuesday.
It is simple…Guyana desperately needs new roads and a new Demerara River bridge.
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