Express News Service By

CHENNAI: For commuters passing through select routes in South Chennai, here is some good news. The IIT Madras has set up a Real-time Traffic Information System that could provide information including congestion levels, alternative routes, travel duration and incident alerts on the routes.

The information would be provided to users through Variable Message Signs (VMS) boards which have been installed at several points on the selected 16-km stretch of road and also through the RTIS website (http://rtis.iitm.ac.in).

The 16-km stretch includes parts of OMR or Rajiv Gandhi IT Expressway, Taramani Road, Velachery Main Road, Velachery Bypass Road, Sardar Patel Road and Taluk Office Road.

“The website is already up. The VMS boards have been installed since last week along the selected stretch. The main thrust of the project is to provide an accurate source of information to commuters so that they can reach their destinations through the least congested route at any given point of time,” said a faculty member from the Transport Engineering Division of the Civil Department which is in charge of the system.

Users can select their origin, destination and mode of travel. The system will suggest routes for travel with the distance and estimated duration. The website also features colour-coded maps depicting speed and congestion levels on the various roads within the network, as well as traffic delays (in minutes) at various junctions and roads, live traffic images from video cameras monitoring the traffic, and an interactive map interface showing location alerts for traffic disruptions such as accidents, incidents, processions, and road work.

Over 100 GPS devices have been placed on city buses travelling the network route and 32 video cameras installed along the roads – both mid-block and at intersections. These use wireless communication to transfer information collected on the traffic conditions to the central control centre. This information is then converted into data that can be used by travellers, using travel time prediction models and algorithms.

This system is a part of the ‘Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS) for Indian Cities’ project sponsored by Department of Electronic and Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India. The prototype is jointly developed by Indian Institute of Technology Madras and C-DAC (Thiruvananthapuram).