Autonomous signals for traffic control

The Mumbai traffic police is going in for a major revamp of the city8217;s traffic management infrastructure. ..

The Mumbai traffic police is going in for a major revamp of the city8217;s traffic management infrastructure. In six months, the city will get its first Autonomous Traffic Control ATC signals along the city8217;s VIP corridors which will be the latest in the stream of improvements funded by the World Bank. This will upgrade the traffic management infrastructure to an international level with the help of Mumbai traffic police and the BMC traffic department. The most significant is a video wall, which is in essence a big screen that can be divided into sections containing data feeds sent from the new signals and video footage from the 95 CCTV cameras already installed in the city. This will bring about a major improvement in the present system where 7 CCTV8217;s are presently being used to monitor the same footage. Along with this, officers in the control room can, at the push of a button, adjust any problem that may come up on the city roads by re-arranging signals.

In the present system, the timers are reset manually, but with the installation of the video wall and ATC technology this can now be done by the staff in the control room. The Mumbai traffic police will also extend the network to three other main corridors in Mumbai east-west and north-south and make signals systems almost entirely autonomous. The traffic signals and traffic movements will be controlled by the officers sitting in the control room who will manage traffic throughout the city.

As opposed to the present signals that operate on a timer that changes lights according to a set time, the new signals will now actually measure traffic congestion on the road and adjust lights to prevent bottlenecks. This means that commuters while travelling during rush hour will not have to worry about red signals as they will be set accordingly to allow smooth flow of traffic by increasing the time allotted to green signals in that direction. The signals will be connected to each other and the traffic control room via MTNL lines allowing better co-ordination and efficient traffic management.

The new signals are led-based and are extremely versatile and can accommodate any symbols fed by the people in control room. For example if the road ahead is congested or blocked due to a procession or any other reason, instead of sending a police man to divert traffic to the left or right, the signal will on a command from the control room will do the job by displaying an arrow in the right direction.

Along with the ATC, other initiatives are already in place such as an area wise subscriber only SMS alert sytem, a bulletin board on the Mumbai traffic police website with traffic information and a multicoloured board, part of verbal messaging system VMS has been set up at RTI junction at Peddar Road allowing the police to send a message to commuters at once.

Most of the traffic systems are managed by the old control room infrastructure but after the revamp it will become easier for officers to control it.

8220;It will free our officers to catch actual violators and take away the stress of directing traffic as this is autonomous,8221; said Jont Commisioner of Police Sanjay Barve. 8220; With time management and more efficiency at hand, the officers will have more time to catch violators. The video wall will also help in gathering data and comparing information received from traffic signals with that of the CCTV cameras and help us gauge situations,8221; he added.

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However, Barve believes that the advantage of this system is its flexibility and versatility. 8220;This will be extremely helpful in times of festivals and VIP visits,8221; he added.