Green light for hi-tech signals

Green light for hi-tech signals
Intelligent Transport Systems Planned To Unclog City Roads
R Krishnakumar | TNN

Bangalore: Badly caught in the rush of Bangalore roads, the traffic police is pitching for an intelligent transportation system as a way out. It will implement an area traffic control (ATC) project, under the BTRAC 2010. Tenders have been floated and the project will be completed in eight to nine months. The ATC tracks traffic volume and direction at signals and updates timing for the signals ahead. According to traffic experts, the success of ATC, which has been implemented in Delhi and Pune, will depend on adherence to lane discipline and traffic mix.
Praveen Sood, ACP (traffic), said the city could also have its first variable message system (VMS) signal in the next six months. “We have floated global tenders and will be able to get the project rolling soon. The budget for VMS is about Rs 10 crore,’’ he says. With the VMS in place, commuters will know the estimated time to reach their destination. Fifty locations will be covered under the project.
Intelligence in-built
The intelligent transport system (ITS), planned on a budget of Rs 150 crore, will be implemented at about 125 signals. Part of the BTRAC 2010, the ITS has four components, the first — upgrading of existing signals — is already in an advanced stage. About 80 signals in the city are being upgraded to a vehicle-actuated system.
It enables the signal identify periods with no vehicular movement and, subsequently, cuts the green signal’s duration and allows vehicles from other directions to pass. Sood says the vehicle-actuated system has great utility during lean hours and on Sundays. Signals like the ones in Attiguppe, Ashok Nagar and at the Ambedkar veedhi-Cunningham road junction have been upgraded under the system. Apart from these, 30 new locations are being identified.
The traffic police has placed orders with Bharat Electronics Limited for 500 blinkers in the city. The blinkers — to be installed on major roads that have approach roads on the flanks — will warn commuters of changing their path.
THE ATC MODEL
In Pune, the ATC experiment ran for about a year, after which average traffic speed was found to have increased by 2% to 12%. The system was put to use at 39 junctions. The ATC consists of vehicle detectors which track vehicles that are on exit loops at signals and pass the information to a signal controller. It will update the signal timings based on traffic volumes and the direction in which the traffic is heading.