eGov-July-2010-[24-26]-Bang! A Traffic Lore

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Project Name B-TRAC 2010 or Bangalore Traffic Improvement Project The organisation Bangalore City Traffic Police Key People Praveen Sood, IGP and Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Sudhir R, Sub Inspector and officerin-charge, TMC

Praveen Sood IGP and Additional CP Traffic)

Problem and Challenges n Rapidly growing vehicular population n Heavy traffic congestion in peak hours n Inadequate infrastructure n Trust and discipline deficit among citizens regarding traffic rules and the traffic department

By Pratap Vikram Singh Photo Sujith Sujan

Bang!

A traffic lore?

A previously clogged traffic

system now stays afloat as

fatalities have come down

and RoI is in sight too 24

egov / www.egovonline.net / July 2010

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T

he city is a major IT hub and also a key industrial and transportation centre in south India. It is regarded as a nerve center of India’s hightech sectors, including IT, biotechnology, and aircraft industries. It has temperate climate, with pleasant summers and mild winters. It has several institutes of learning, notably the Indian Institute of Science.

The traffic situation Unfortunately, the city’s infrastructure, especially the roads and the traffic system has not kept pace with the growing human and vehicular population. This had resulted in chaos on city roads, characterised by heavy congestion, crawling traffic and frequent signal jumpers and violators.

To ameliorate the traffic conditions, Bangalore City Traffic Police (BCTP) has deployed a comprehensive Intelligent Transportation System (ITS).

The city of Bangalore has a road network of more than 3,000 km and is mainly radial, converging in the centre.

BCTP has been facing genuine limitations and challenges in tackling the traffic congestion menace, despite the construction of new roads and flyovers.

According to available data, in 1978 the number of vehicles was 1.46 lakh, which then increased to 6.84 lakh in 1992 and to 31 lakh in 2007. In 2009, Bangalore had a vehicular population of 37 lakh.

Of the 37 lakh vehicles, over 88 percent are personal vehicles—motorcycles and cars. Mass transportation vehicles such as

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buses and vans account for a meagre eight percent.

In addition, signal timings at various intersections needed a thorough rationalisation. The process of signalling was manual and there was no standard and rational approach towards the management of traffic.

Moreover, there was a ‘trust and discipline deficit’ among citizens regarding traffic rules and even the traffic department. There was a lack of sound image in the public regarding officers having vested interests. A transformational approach that could fix the leakages and enhance the overall efficiency of the system was very much needed.

The solution Finding the way out, BCTP zeroed in for deploying a comprehensive intelligent transportation system (ITS) solution, which would not just automate the whole process of traffic management but also enable a two-way smart communication between the sources of data collection like traffic signals and surveillance points, and the control centre. This only could ensure effective generation of notices and violation-fee collections.

With this objective, the Traffic Management Centre (TMC) was set up in 2008, through which BCTP took control of and centralised the management and facilitation of traffic. At TMC, data obtained from various modules are collected, collated, processed, translated into workable intelligence and then executed on a real-time basis for monitoring of ITS operations.

The system functions as follows: A sensor is laid beneath the road near zebra crossing, and is linked to controller positioned at the intersection, which transmit signals regarding the presence or absence of vehicle over the sensors. In case a vehicle doesn’t pass over for more than four seconds, the time controller switches the light from green to red, after the minimum duration of nine seconds [allotted to each signal in each direction. This is what is called as vehicle actuation mode. In automated signalling, the duration of signal lights can be programmed in advance, variable with the time. When on synchronous mode, the various signals work in progression, and the corresponding lights turn green based on the movement of traffic.

For surveillance, nearly 180 pan tilt and zoom (PTZ) cameras have been positioned at various locations, and act as an effective tool for keeping an eagle watch on the traffic movement and discipline. These cameras capture live feeds and pass it on to TMC where a 24 terabyte storage solution is used to store the feed for 15 days. Besides, five high-definition cameras have been mounted at five large intersections and are essentially used for law enforcements. These take snaps of vehicles violating traffic rules, to be used as electronic evidence

Tech@use Application: Web-based Database: Oracle 9i Hardware: PCs (Pentium IV and above versions) Resources: Internet and Mobile Connectivity Platform: ASP.NET 2.0

THE impact With ICT intervention in traffic management, the law enforcement, transparency in collection of violation fee and sense of traffic discipline has been increased tremendously.

July 2010 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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Technology providers

signals, surveillance and enforcement cameras and VMS boards is automatically tracked by the system. ICMS is based on escalation matrix, wherein a complaint is to be resolved in a particular timeframe. In case of a non-resolution, the complaint is escalated.

Technology / solution

Vendor

Silverlight-based intelligent signalling software

Microsoft

Video Evidence Management System

Mind Tree

Database automation application

Thematics

Reconciliation application for BlackBerry handsets

TELiBrahma

Leased line connectivity

BSNL

Benefits realised

Enforcement cameras

Tourbo Consultancy

Surveillance cameras

Zycom (supply and maintenance)

Signal lights

Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL)

Servers

IBM (rack servers) and HP (tower model servers)

BlackBerry connectivity and maintenance

Airtel

Since its deployment, Rs 38 crore has been collected. Moreover, it has led to an overall development of the traffic police personnel, while mitigating the trust deficit of a citizen when paying for a violation.

Praveen Sood, IGP and Additional CP (Traffic), says the department had been struggling to “manage the show [traffic congestion] with existing resources”.

With ICT intervention, the enforcement, collection of penalty fee and sense of traffic discipline has been increased tremendously, with the same number of personnel and limited resources.

“The unprecedented collection of violation fee has resulted in earning of good amount of revenue for the department.

Given the rate of enforcement and subsequent collection, the investment of Rs 50 crore will be recovered by next year.

However, earning more revenue is not the objective. The objective is to minimise the violation to a zero level,” Sood points out.

He added that the fatality rate has gone down since the inception of ITS, from 981 in 2007 to 761 in 2009.

Sudhir R, Sub Inspector and officerin-charge of TMC, said, “Through these deployments, citizens have got multiple options for paying violation fees. It can be done either through paying at the Bangalore One Centre, on-spot through BlackBerry used by the field officer, online or by visiting any of the 39 police stations.”

Moreover, the deployment has extensively added to the pro-activeness of the department. The integrated network of surveillance camera system is being leveraged for proactive measures in cases of security and safety and in providing emergency health services at times of accidents or natural disasters impacting the road network.

Tangible gains Violation fee collection (in Rs crore)

2001

13.5

2002

13.6

2003

14.1

2004

12.9

2005

20.3

2006

21.3

2007

WHILE the ITS deployment has MADE THE the Traffic deparment pro-active, IT HAS ALSO HELPED DRIVE IN BETTER CIVIC SENSE AMONG THE citizen

19.9

2008

29.5

2009

37.6

(up to May) 2010

19.5

Fatalities reduced No. of fatalities

2007 981

2008 892

2009 761

2010 (till june) 321

for collection of violation fees. The connectivity between cameras and TMC is being provided by BSNL through a 4Mbps leased line.

To ensure transparency in traffic penalty fee collection, 600 BlackBerry handsets are being used by the traffic cops. This enables on-spot electronic feeding of data and immediate generation of receipts with the help of hand-help printing devices.

The whole deployment of ITS is IP-based. Any downtime in the network of traffic

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egov / www.egovonline.net / July 2010