Bengaluru mall introduces FASTag for parking fee payments, cuts wait time

BENGALURU: With shopping malls springing up across Bengaluru, drawing huge crowds, parking has become a major issue in the city. In order to cut down on waiting time for payment of parking fees, some malls in the city are now planning to introduce FASTag facility to reduce wait time.

There are about 30 malls in the city with lakhs of people visiting them. Visitors have to get parking tickets and pay per hour while exiting. This leads to hold-ups, especially on weekends when there is a rush of visitors.

Some mall owners and shopping arcades in the city are now linking their parking facilities with FASTag for faster collection of parking fees. Sandeep Shetty, group mall head of operations at Orion Mall, Brigade Gateway, said, “Our core values include QC first — customer centricity and innovation. We want to give the best facilities for our patrons and in this direction, we implemented FASTag. This makes for easier entry and exit for customers and they won’t have to wait, so they have welcomed it”.

“We have tied up with ICICI Bank for the FASTag facility. If it is implemented in all malls and commercial establishments, it will be convenient for everyone. We were testing it for the last one month and we have implemented it in a full-fledged manner since the last two weeks”, Shetty added.

“It saves a lot of time, I think it’s a great step. It should be expanded to all malls”, said Sunit, a visitor. “It definitely saves waiting time”, said Mohammed Yousuf, another visitor.

“With the introduction of FASTag, visitors and exit faster as they won’t have to wait in the queue. With FASTag, visitors can complete the payment in just seven seconds as it is cashless and leads to less crowding. All malls and shopping complexes can implement it”, said Satish, a supervisor at the parking facility.

“Introduction of FASTag has helped a lot as there is no problem of giving out change. Visitors are also happy with the facility as vehicles move out faster”, said Geetha, a parking attendant.