Google Maps

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Electronics City

Wipro

By Bejoy SebastianDynamic Signal will useto measure volume, speed of traffic to dynamically regulate itWhile the entire city is suffering the traffic woes, Electronic City is future ready. Six signals in Electronic City have been fine-tuned to Dynamic Signalling technology, which usesMaps technology to measure volume and speed of traffic to dynamically regulate the timing of traffic lights.This is the most modern of all traffic signaling technologies, part of the intelligent traffic management system. While the traffic signals were initially introduced with pre-programmed cycle timings, theIndustrial Township Authority (ELCITA) kept studying different technologies available across the globe to adopt.“We have now introduced this technology in West Phase at the SBI (Toll) Junction, Siemens Junction, Paramount Junction andJunction in synchronised mode and at RS Junction and Oterra Junction in stand-alone mode. Earlier, we had the regular, automatic signals, which are now replaced with ‘Dynamic Signalling’. Out of the total 16 signals, we have also introduced 13 Automated Traffic Signalling (ATS) Lights in West Phase, among which, six of them are ‘dynamic’. During peak hours one, rightly spends some time at the signal but, during non-peak hours, waiting at a signal is a waste of time, due to a pre-programmed system. Our objective is to reduce this time and to accurately measure the amount of time required to cross without causing inconvenience to the commuters, using the Google mapping technology,” says Rama NS, Chief Executive Officer, ELCITA“This is currently done on an experimental basis which and will be expanded throughout Electronic City limits. It is actually the first time that such a technology will be introduced in India. We had carried out limited trials using Dynamic Signalling adapting Google Maps and found that the traffic movement was getting accurately captured by the system and signals activated using this data. Gradually, we expect that the whole ELCITA limits could be covered by this. We are also looking for feedback from the general public and the government,” she added.Radha Mohan, one of the commuters said, “In the peak hours it used to take 120 seconds. Now it is only about 80 seconds, as per calculated traffic measurements. ”ELCITA has joined hands with Siemens to implement these signals.Currently, Bengaluru has three types of traffic signals; automatic, adoptive and red Light Violation Detection (RLVD) signals. In automatic signals, the timings are pre-fixed for peak and non-peak hours. During emergency or heavy congestion, cops take over the signals and turns to manual.The manual signals work better at those junctions where the traffic congestion is less. However, in high congestion roads, automatic signals work better as it is seen that during manual signalling, the cops tend to allow one side of traffic to be cleared before they switch over to the next one and by then, the congestion would have increased on other roads. A few of the junctions have adoptive signals, which is the most-modern works and in the RLVD system has enforcement cameras which catches a person violating the traffic rulesTraffic congestion data will be collected from Google Maps and fed to the signaling system. Then, based on the traffic density, the system calculates the time required for traffic to move in a particular direction and the green light will go on for that direction. In this period the countdown timer will display the time the signal will be open for traffic to move. Once the phase ends, amber will blink three times (3 seconds) and lights will turn red.While the dynamic mode is in operation, the countdown timer for stop signal will not be on display. Commuters, while stopped, need to pay attention to the traffic signal where the red/amber light will blink three times (3 seconds) before the signal turns green. This has been implemented in many foreign countries like US and Germany. A command centre will coordinate the operations of the signalling syetem. As it is automatic, manpower used will be less. All signals are connected by optical fibres.