Nagpur: Taking a serious note of chaos and slowed down movement of traffic every time one approaches the traffic signal, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation has now plans to set up an Intelligent and Integrated Traffic Management System (I&IMTS) with an aim to end waiting time at traffic signals, according to a report in a local English daily.
According to the report, the officials of the civic body are readying with plans to provide respite to Nagpurians from endless stoppages and stagnation while they are on streets. So very soon the citizens of the Second Capital can look forward to seamless movement on city roads once the I&ITMS is commissioned, says the report.
The I&IMTS is part of a Rs 197 crore project submitted by a committee headed by Chief Secretary to resolve the issues common to urban space in the country, encroachments, traffic snarls, congestion on roads, obstacles in smooth movement of traffic etc. The report was given in principle approval by the Urban Development Department (UDD) following which the civic body moved ahead with the implementation part.
As per the report, the project file is going to be forwarded to Home Ministry for allocation of funds for the I&IMTS, it is identified as one of the short term measures. The Committee headed by the Chief Secretary suggested some short term as well as long term measures for overcoming problems in better lives of citizens. The Committee came into being during hearing of writ petition 57/2010 at Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court. The senior officers of State Government were aided in decision making by the comprehensive mobility report submitted by M/s KPMG Services Pvt. Ltd. wherein it listed measures for overcoming the problems in urban management.
The entire system is going to be operated on Internet of Things (IoT) wherein the thrust is on providing a real time green signal by quick analysis of the traffic movement at the squares. The cost of IoT based micro controllers is pegged at just over Rs. 1.60 crore and would cover 11 traffic corridors in the city through which vehicular movement is going to be regulated to provide real time savings and real time green signal on the stretch.
At present the traffic signals are pre-programmed with 180 seconds rotation and as per the pre-fed format they turn amber to green and red as per the fixed operating system. The traffic stretches identified by the consultant after studying the vehicular movements in city are Central Avenue, West and East High Court Road, North Ambazari Road, Khapri to Samvidhan Square, Samvidhan Square to Automotive Square, Samvidhan Square to Gittikhadan Square, Palm Road, Great Nag Road, Ring Road.
The main thrust is on cutting down travel time through intelligent traffic management and the same would cool down the frayed nerves of citizens who often end-up hitting ‘roadblocks’ at red signals which are a problem of plenty on long thoroughfares. The main problem is mixed vehicular traffic wherein each vehicle has different acceleration and horsepower ratio that results in mismatch of speed and all this ends-up in traffic snarls on major thoroughfares. This is sought to be overcome by leveraging the innovations and deployment of technological tools, said people familiar with the project. I&IMTS is just first one part of the mega project aimed at improving the living standards in the Second Capital of the city and the entire component is pegged at Rs. 197 crores by M/s KPMG that recently submitted its report.
The micro controller component of IoT will be affixed at NMC’s administrative buildings in Civil Lines, while the operational arena would be City Operations Centre (COC) that gets live feed through the 3600 CCTV cameras affixed at strategic locations across length and breadth of the city. With IoT, NMC plans to have green corridors on bustling city roads by real time calculation of data feedings to adjust the signals for maintaining even traffic flow resulting in ending the unnecessary detentions. The I&ITMS would end traffic congestion that is now leaving citizens quite frustrated and moreover results in burning of costly fuel due to continuous red despite the fact that on the other side the traffic flow has reduced.
