http://www.mydigitalfc.com/technical-analysis/smart-roads-838
Rahul was travelling from Bandra to Worli in Mumbai but worried about traffic jams on the road. It is, after all, one of the most crowded routes in the city. But there was no way he could surmise what lay ahead.
A few months from now though, he could have the roads (through smart tech) alerting him of a traffic jam before it fully forms.
That’s just one solution, but it is indicative of the research and interest in ‘smart roads’ concept. Technology may soon be harnessed to make travel easier for commuters as well as help the traffic police maintain discipline.
Companies like Alcatel, IBM and Bosch are powering the smart road concept in India with the latest advances in sensors, wireless communications, computing power and the internet. Bell Labs Research India, Alcatel-Lucent's R&D arm, is developing a service application using cellphone usage data including density and presence on network from different towers to give consumers information on traffic and their distance to a particular destination.
“We use sensors to identify and track devices through short range communications like radios and bluetooth present in cellphones. These can tell us how long those phones have been on a particular road and help give predictive information,” says Vishy Poosla, director of Bell Labs Research.
The division has just completed trials in Mumbai with a service provider. “We are already talking to various city governments in India, UK, Europe and US because of the tremendous interest, even though the product is not yet ready,” adds Poosla.
IBM, meanwhile, has developed a software that can examine current traffic patterns and foresee congestion up to 45 minutes ahead. The system, being tested in Singapore, has proved to be about 90 per cent accurate in predicting the volume and speed of drivers in the central business district. The information is then used to adjust 1,700 sets of traffic lights to smooth the flow of traffic.
While smart roads were earlier considered as something only seen in places like Singapore and London, Indian cities are slowly catching up on. Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai are at the forefront of this concept.
The Bangalore city traffic police has started a project called B-Trac to manage congestion and chaos on the roads. The unit has launched an interim traffic management centre (TMC) to manage the traffic efficiently and scientifically, using the available human resources. TMC receives live video coverage of 40 major junctions using surveillance cameras and traffic signal violations from five enforcement cameras. All the 178 traffic signals in the city are being linked to the TMC through optic fibre to be managed by experts. In the near future, most of the signals will be vehicle actuated. That means the presence of vehicles will decide the duration of the red or green signal.
Bangalore traffic police is also automating the process of imposing fines on traffic violators. Constables will be given Black-Berrys allowing them to keep a tab on repeat or habitual offenders. As Praveen Sood, traffic police chief of Bangalore says on the unit’s website, “This is an important step towards an intelligent transport system.”
Bosch Security Systems is one of the companies involved in the B-Trac project by supplying video cameras and maintaining the TMC. According to Dhiraj Wali, VP of Bosch Security Systems India, “Apart from monitoring violations, live camera inputs can be used by police to manage flow of traffic by controlling and changing the light systems on roads.”
Wali said that other cities like Chandigarh and Mumbai have opted for similar technology systems. The upcoming Common-wealth Games in Delhi is forcing the capital to look at this option too. Pune and Kolkata (Rs 28 crore project) are also in the process of getting an intelligent traffic management system (IT-MS), being implemented by Keltron, a government of Kerala undertaking. The main features of the Rs 17-crore ITMS in Pune include speed and signal violation detection systems at various junctions, traffic control systems at 30 prominent junctions, a passenger information system for 100 buses, and a garbage and octroi vehicle tracking system. Apart from this, there were be a critical public place surveillance system at 70 locations, in which, round-the-clock, real-time video recording will be done.
Michael Suresh Raj, chief general manager of traffic signals division, Keltron said, “these two are first-of-their-kind projects in India.’’ He added that other cities and municipalities like Nagpur and Vijayawada are planning such implementations.
Keltron is now developing a low-cost traffic signal system as a stand-alone product. According to Raj, smaller cities will not need a large number of these systems, especially those which are linked. These should be launched in another 3 months, he added.
Globally, companies are also working on road and traffic signals that can warn drivers of dangerous situations, such as approaching a curve or a stop light too fast. The signs would communicate wirelessly with the vehicle and deliver warnings through an on-dash display, like those used in GPS navigation systems. Or it could radio signals to send warnings through a vehicle's sound system. The days of the errant drivers may be numbered.
