India marked a significant advancement in the upgrade of its highway infrastructure on Friday by introducing the country’s first barrier-less Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) tolling system at the Choryasi toll plaza on the Surat-Bharuch section of NH-48 in Gujarat.The state-of-the-art system was launched by Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari. It enables seamless toll collection without requiring vehicles to stop, using advanced technologies such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and FASTag-based identification systems.The MLFF tolling is a barrier-less toll collection mechanism that facilitates transactions through the reading of FASTag and the vehicle registration number (VRN) via high-performance RFID readers and ANPR cameras. It allows uninterrupted toll collection without stopping vehicles at fee plazas, thereby reducing congestion and travel time, improving fuel efficiency and lowering vehicular emissions, and minimising human intervention in toll operations.The MLFF implementation is also expected to enhance toll revenue collection efficiency and contribute to the development of a smarter, faster and more efficient national highway network across the country.The government had signed an agreement with ICICI Bank last year for the implementation of the MLFF at the Gharaunda Fee Plaza in Haryana on NH-44. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is planning to roll out the MLFF-based tolling at around 25 fee plazas during the current financial year.Following the launch, Gadkari said barrier-less tolling would further enhance the “ease of living” for citizens and promote “ease of doing business” by enabling faster and more efficient movement of goods and logistics across the country. He said the initiative reflected the government’s continued commitment to building world-class, technology-driven national highway infrastructure that was efficient, transparent and commuter-friendly.