BHUBANESWAR: Travellers on the national highways are now set for a safer, faster and hassle-free journey. They can get information about the accidents or traffic snarls on their route so that they can take a diversion, if their vehicles have digital radio to receive the alerts issued by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is shortly going to introduce a free-to-air information distribution system that uses radio to transmit highway traffic data across the country.
The Highway Advisory System (HAS) is a state-of-the-art information network which will have live traffic updates on the NHs. While it has been taken up on Delhi-Jaipur highway as a pilot project, it would be extended to other States soon.
An official of the ministry said it has been planned to issue at least 22 bulletins every day informing about the traffic congestion. “Initially, in Odisha, the highway stretch from Puri to Bhubaneswar has been included in the system. Other highways will be taken up in a phased manner,” he informed.
Sources said under the project, real time highway information will be gathered from concessionaires, patrolling vehicles, toll plazas and traffic posts. The information will be transmitted to HAS control centre using mobile applications, telephones and sensors.
Subsequently, the HAS control will process and analyse the information, generate alerts and send it to be broadcast by the All India Radio or digital radio stations.
The official said the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is reportedly in talks with a Bengaluru-based company to purchase digital receivers. Although some of the newly launched four-wheelers have digital radio facilities, the old vehicles lack the equipment.
This apart, the Ministry has adopted a national road safety policy to reduce fatality due to road accidents. The policy outlines various measures like promoting awareness, establishing road safety information data base, encouraging safer road infrastructure and enforcement of safety laws.
Meanwhile, Chairman of NHAI Raghav Chandra visited the Bhubaneswar-Puri section of NH-203 on Sunday and directed the officials to take up the work of safety measures immediately. In Odisha, more than 10 persons die on the road network every day.