VIJAYAWADA: The days are not far away when regulating traffic manually with the help of public address system at busy junctions will be a thing of the past. Reason: the city’s traffic police along with the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is all set to introduce advanced Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) across all traffic signals in the city.
Recently, NTR district Commissioner of Police Kanthi Rana Tata inspected the ongoing works at various junctions in the city and asked the officials concerned to ensure ITMS is introduced at the earliest. According to traffic officials, the ITMS is an artificial intelligence (AI) based system, equipped with cameras.
It comes up with five advanced features such as Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS), Traffic Enforcement System (TES), Information Dissemination System (IDS), Traffic Surveillance System (TSS) and Traffic Control and Command Centre (TCCC). The new system will not only help to ease traffic congestion but will reduce the burden on the personnel deployed on the ground. Moreover, it will keep a check on violations such as speed limit, jumping the signal, triple riding, speaking on the phone while driving and other traffic violations.
The project was proposed a decade ago in 2013 in view of rising vehicular traffic, but could not materialise due to various reasons. ITMS helps in changing signal timings. ATCS, which is one of its five special features, operates on its own based on the live traffic status.
“In ITMS, signal points will have vehicle-detecting cameras installed so that the cameras can detect the number of vehicles in the junction and send data to the signal buzzer. Based on an algorithm, signals will operate on its own. The vehicular movement at busy junctions will be streamlined depending on the traffic density,” said Kanthi Rana Tata.
“A road with higher vehicle density will be preferred for green signal over the road with lesser traffic. Emergency vehicles such as ambulances and VIP vehicles are automatically given clearance and are provided with a green corridor based on the inputs from ground-level staff monitoring traffic movement,” he said.
Traffic signals at Benz Circle, Nirmala Convent, Ramesh Hospital, Mahanadu, Ramavarappadu, PCR, PCR Y, Raghavaiah Park, Skew Bridge, Anjaneya Swamy Temple and other places will be covered under ITMS project. Rana further said, “ITMS has been integrated with Google maps giving a larger scope for remote operations and can collect data of vehicles for enforcement and investigation,”