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Soon, a smart traffic system for Pune


PUNE: In less than two months from now, Pune will probably become the first city in the country to have a world-class intelligent traffic management system (ITMS).

The important features of the Rs 17-crore ITMS for Pune include speed and signal violation detection systems at various junctions, traffic control systems at 30 prominent junctions, a passenger information system for 100 buses, and a garbage and octroi vehicle tracking system.

This is besides a critical public place surveillance system at 70 locations, in which live, round-the-clock, real-time video recording will be done.

The ITMS works on the Geographical Information System base map for Pune city.

Captain O P Dua, managing director of Keltron, the company which has undertaken the project for the Pune Municipal Corporation, said on Tuesday that the project was expected to be completed by May 31. Keltron, a government of Kerala undertaking, is also simultaneously implementing the same project in Kolkata at a cost of Rs 28 crore. However, the progress of the Pune project was ahead of the Kolkata one, said Dua, who was on a visit to the city.

"In the ITMS, we have integrated five or six technologies after building a knowledge base. The system is at par with any other ITMS functional in any part of the world. The projects in Pune and Kolkata will become a benchmark in the country," Dua said.

The ITMS will be monitored and controlled from a central office at Swargate which has 15 television screens. When the project is finally commissioned, the police and the traffic authorities as well as the civic authorities will be able to jointly monitor all the movements on the TV screens in real time. Recorded video can be stored for up to seven days.

Dua said more junctions and locations in the city can be covered under the ITMS at a later stage. Various features too can be added to the system. For instance, Kolkata is working on adding a system under which a distress call made from a house can be tracked and necessary police help can be provided at the earliest.

Meanwhile, Pimpri-Chinchwad is also likely to get a similar ITMS soon, Dua said. Many cities in India are asking for the system too. In Delhi, Keltron is willing to develop the system before the Commonwealth Games scheduled for next year.

8 Apr 2009, TNN