How Pune plans to reduce traffic chaos on busy roads with help of AI

“The ATMS on 75 junctions have already been activated and put on adaptive mode. ATMS equipment has been installed in most of the remaining 50 junctions and will soon be put on adaptive mode by November end,” said a PSCDCL officer.

The project would be maintained for five years by the private agency and then transferred to the PMC. The ATMS has been fully activated on Karve Road, Tilak Road, Solapur Road, Nagar Road, Satara Road, Senapati Bapat Road, and the new and old airport roads.

“The main objective of the ATMS is to ease the traffic situation on busy city roads, and we are hopeful that the situation would improve with a reduction in travel time for citizens. The private agency implementing the project has assured 98 per cent accuracy in achieving the objective. There will be changes in the duration of traffic signals depending on the situation. Still, the time for pedestrian crossing will remain unchanged in any given situation,” said PMC chief engineer Srinivas Kandul.

According to the PSCDCL, variable electronic display boards of 4 feet by 2 feet at 25 junctions will be used to instruct commuters. “If there is traffic chaos on any road, then the board would instruct the commuters to take the alternate available route for commuting to their destination and avoid the traffic situation worsening on the road already affected due to traffic jam,” said the PSCDCL officer.

The additional feature of the ATMS includes studying the travel time on each road and, based on the needs, working towards further improving the traffic flow. “The Blue Toad (a data collection and database management suite of applications for travel-time data aggregation, dashboard-based visualisation and a variety of connected vehicle applications) is being used for the first time anywhere in Asia. It helps in regularly studying the travel time of any vehicle on any given stretch and accordingly work towards improving it,” he said.

A bell camera installed at each of the selected junctions records movement in 360 degrees and transfers the data to the traffic signal controller for changing the signal time accordingly. These cameras detect the vehicles, count them and classify them as two-wheeler, three-wheeler or four-wheeler.

The real-time data of all junctions is processed by the integrated command and control centre at the Smart City office on Sinhagad Road. “The traffic signals are controlled, monitored and given commands from the control centre as per the situation. The control room can provide a green corridor on the press of a button for seamless travel during any emergency situation,” said the PSCDCL officer.

The ATMS equipment on each junction runs on the state electricity supply, and a back-up of two-and-half hours is provided in case of disruption in power supply. Every junction is connected to the control room with two intranet networks to ensure it is unaffected even if one gets damaged. The ATMS will be on blinker mode from 11 pm to 6 am when traffic on the city road relaxes.

The impact report of the implementation of the project will be submitted to PMC in the next few months after observing the changes in traffic flow. The project will be extended to more junctions on other roads depending on the performance of ATMS.