HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has finalised the draft Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Master Plan-2031 for the Hyderabad Metropolitan Area (HMA).
The plan was finalised after incorporating valid suggestions and objections received from the public. The same would be posed to the Executive Committee of HMDA (consisting of senior officials from HMDA, GHMC, APIIC, APHB, APSRTC, Finance, Urban Planning and District Collectors of Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Medak, Nalgonda and Mahaboobnagar) to discuss the pros and cons of the report. The organisation received about 80 to 90 suggestions and objections in this regard.
For the first time in the country, HMDA initiated the ITS master plan for HMA, with an aim to reduce traffic accidents, enhancing communication and response in emergency, reducing energy consumption and efficiency in reaching destination, increase national and regional economic output through efficient utilisation of transport facilities.
Also reducing travel time and travel costs by providing reliable real-time information through ITS, it is an efficient investment in traffic-related infrastructure and road use that reduces cost of road management and enhances appropriate management of ITS data.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) study team, after conducting various surveys and traffic studies and collection of data, has identified the issues and suggested measures to enhance safety, improve road environment and formulated the ITS master plan.
The ITS project costing about `1,180 crore would be implemented in three phases. Phase-I (1-5 years) will cost about `150 crore, phase-II (6-10 years) will cost `425 crore and phase-III (above 10 years) will cost `605 crore.
The proposed ITS will have 692 Automatic Traffic Counter-cum-Classifiers (ATCC) at 346 locations, CCTVs (879 places), Traffic Signals (622), Pedestrian Signals (1,500), Variable Messaging System (213), Flood Sensors (125), Weather Stations (63), Pollution Sensors (21), Electronic Road Pricing (10) and parking system at 20 places in HMA, the officials added.
The draft ITS was finalised three months ago but was delayed due to the general elections in between.