Most Bangaloreans are rattled by increasing traffic in the city but very few have gone beyond expressing their anger and helplessness. That is why the effort of these four students stand out.
Archita Ravindra, Shivalika Shylanath, Rahul Naidu and Niranjan Rajaghatta — students of M S Ramaiah Institute, have come out with suggestions to ease the flow of traffic in Bangalore.
Their findings were born out of their final-year project which is a part of their course in Industrial Engineering and Management. “We wanted to work on something that will help the general public, since traffic is a common complaint, we decided to study ways to help the situation.”
On May 21, they presented their project report to additional commissioner of Bangalore Traffic Police (BTP), M A Saleem. The report makes recommendations on ways to optimise signal timings at Anil Kumle Circle. It claims that a 25-second reduction in waiting time at the signal here will result in average savings of Rs 3,000, per hour, in fuel expenses. “This could be applied to crucial junctions all over the city too,” they claim.
Said Shivalika, “Industrial engineering deals with optimising processes, supply chains, operations research and the like across manufacturing and production sectors. We study resource management and how to increase productivity and efficiency. It was obvious to us that we could apply our learning to easing the traffic situation in the city too.”
Principles of queuing theory, applied probability, statistics and simulation modelling were put to use by the four to come up with optimal signal timings.
Archita said, “To test our hypothesis, we chose Anil Kumble junction. We analysed the many videos available with Traffic Management Centre (TMC) at Ashoknagar. We studied the traffic at various junctions, and using applied probability and statistics, arrived at a pattern to vehicular flow.”
They also used applied queuing theory to the data collected to calculate average delay time at signal.
As the primary motive of the project was to reduce delay, they calculated the optimal signal timings for the least delay by using interpolation. Then, to calculate optimal signal timing, they revised signal timings for the junction at Anil Kumble Circle. “The existing cycle time was found to be 180 seconds (during peak hours) and our proposed signal cycle time is 155 seconds. Thus, saving 25 seconds per cycle will effect savings of `3,000 of fuel, per hour,” said Archita.
“It is amazing how a simple change can positively affect commuter’s time and savings,” said Shivalika.
The four started work on the project in December 2012 when they sought permission from the additional commissioner BTP for assistance.
“There were times when due to some technical errors we were not able to get videos from the TMC. We would then go on the spot and study the patterns. We hope the traffic department adopts our findings into their system,” they said. The students are all praises for the help they received from the traffic police. ACP, Traffic, M A Saleem is quite impressed with the project. He said, “I have sent the project’s findings to BEL and if they approve it, we will implement them in our system.”