Topic 1 : Introducing a new toll collection system
Context
The current government plans to implement a new highway toll collection system based on the global navigation satellite system.
New proposed highway tolling system
- The global navigation satellite system is a term used to refer to any satellite-based navigation system, including the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS).
- It uses a large constellation of satellites to provide more accurate location and navigation information to users globally as compared to the GPS alone.
- It’s implementation will involve an On-Board Unit (OBU), or a tracking device, fitted inside a vehicle whose location can be mapped using GAGAN, the Indian satellite navigation system with an approximate accuracy of 10 metres.
- The co-ordinates of the entire length of the country’s national highways will have to be logged with the help of digital image processing, and software will be used to assign the toll rate on a particular highway, calculate the toll amount for a vehicle as per the distance travelled by it and then deduct it from a wallet linked to the OBU.
- The system will additionally have gantries, or arches mounted with CCTV cameras, at various points on a highway for enforcement purposes.
- These will capture an image of the vehicle’s high security registration plate and cross verify if a road user is trying to trick the system by either removing the tracking device or travelling without an OBU onboard.
- The aim of the technology is to provide users the benefit of paying toll only for the actual distance travelled on a highway, or pay-as-you-use and allow barrier-free movement.
Challenges
- One of the major challenges posed by this technology is that of recovering the toll amount if a road user fails to clear his payment after completing a journey on a highway.
- Because there are no barriers involved that can stop a non-compliant vehicle, there are other issues such as when a vehicle travels on a highway without an OBU device linked or the OBU device is deliberately switched off to avoid payment or if a car’s OBU is installed on a truck to pay less toll.
- Gantry-mounted Automatic Number-Plate Recognition (ANPR)-based systems for capturing violations have to be set up on highways across India. However, no such infrastructure exists in the country today.
- Further, the success of an ANPR system depends on the quality of the licence plates, which are currently limited to a few cities and States.
- The government will also have to amend the National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules in order to provide for the recovery of unpaid toll, define offences as well as require the necessity of an OBU in vehicles.
Safeguarding privacy
- It has decided to use the GAGAN satellite system and not GPS, which is owned by the U.S., to ensure data security within the country.
- The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 passed in Parliament last year will address privacy concerns.
- The law had received flak from civil society for the widening of exemptions granted to government agencies that may facilitate increased state surveillance.
Conclusion
The new tolling system will co-exist with the FASTag-based toll collection as the government has not yet taken a decision on whether OBUs will be made mandatory for all vehicles or only for new vehicles.
Topic 2 : Understanding the basic principles of artificial intelligence
Introduction
Intelligence is the capacity of living beings to apply what they know to solve problems. ‘Artificial intelligence’ (AI) is intelligence in a machine. There is currently no one definition of AI. A simple place to begin is with AI’s material existence, as a machine-software combination.
The types of learning
- Linear classification is a fairly simple algorithm in machine-learning.
- There are many algorithms that serve this purpose, and some of them are very complex.
- The three main ways in which ‘machines’ can be classified depending on the way they learn are supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning.
- In supervised learning, the data is labelled. In unsupervised learning, this information is withheld, forcing the machine to understand how the data can be organised and then solve a problem.
- In reinforcement learning, engineers score the machine’s output as it learns and solves problems on its own, and uses the scores to adjust its performance.
The machine’s ‘brain’
- The way in which information flows inside the machine is governed by artificial neural networks (ANNs), the software that ‘animates’ the hardware.
- An ANN comprises computing units, or nodes, connected together in such a way that the whole network learns the way an animal brain does.
- The nodes mimic neurons and the connections between nodes mimic synapses.
- Every ANN has two components — activation functions and weights.
- The activation function is an algorithm that runs at a node. It accepts inputs from other nodes to which it is connected and computes an output.
- The inputs and outputs are in the form of real numbers. The weight is the ‘importance’ an activation function gives to an input.
- While nodes are computing units, the ANN itself is not a physical entity. It is mathematical.
- A node is the ‘site’ of a mathematical function. Put differently, the ANN is like an algorithm that passes information from one activation function to the next in a specific order.
- A graphic processing unit (GPU) is the physical processor that ‘runs’ the ANN.
- It has been widely adopted since as the basic computing unit for ANNs for the same feature.
Applications of AI in Different Sectors
- Healthcare: It aims to enhance diagnosis accuracy, enable personalized treatment, improve patient outcomes, streamline healthcare operations, and accelerate medical research and innovation.
- Business: AI in the business sector helps optimize operations, enhance decision-making, automate repetitive tasks, improve customer service, enable personalized marketing etc
- Education: AI could open new possibilities for innovative and personalised approaches catering to different learning abilities.
- Judiciary: It is used to improve legal research and analysis, automate documentation and case management, enhance court processes and scheduling, facilitate online dispute resolution etc
- Cybersecurity/Security: It is used in security and cybersecurity to detect and prevent cyber threats, identify anomalous activities, analyze large volumes of data for patterns and vulnerabilities.
Way forward
- AI has all the ability to surpass human intelligence and can perform any particular task much accurately and efficiently.
- There is also no doubt that AI possesses immense potential which further helps to create a better place to live in.
- However, anything in excess is not good and nothing can be matched at par with the human brain.
- Therefore, AI should not be used excessively as too much automation and dependent on machines can create a very hazardous environment for the present human mankind and for the next generations to come.