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What is the role of system integrators in today?s ITS market in India? What has been your experience as a system integrator?
The system integrator?s role is very important. The integrator collects the exact requirement from the client. Though the requirements for different types of systems may be similar, the implementation does vary. Also it is very much important to select the best brands for off the shelf equipment. The overall quality of the delivered system and support depends immensely on the subcomponents used. We at Kent-ITS understood the importance and significance of sub components in ITS solutions long back. Therefore we design and manufacture our own Lane Controllers, AVC systems, Overhead Signals, Traffic lights, User Fare displays, smart card readers and importantly the Software Application. This gives a full control on the quality and support for the equipment in our ITS solution. With most of the equipment manufactured as per the ISO 9001:2008 standards and the best brands selected for off the shelf equipment, the KENT-ITS solution stands apart from others in terms of quality, flexibility and maintainability.
What are the unique features of the Kent Toll Collection System?
At KENT-ITS, we respect every client?s individual requirements. In fact, we never impose what we have and we always look for what the client needs. The flexibility the system has because of major in-house design and manufacturing facilities gives us a cutting edge in the implementation of the KENT-ITS?s toll collection system for most complex user requirements ? whether it is a closed system like Ahmadabad-Vadodara expressway or dedicated ETC lanes like at the Bandra Worli Sea Link Project. Another USP of the KENT-ITS toll solution has been the approach towards the after-sales support. We definitely understand that we work for a market which deals with cash, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Because of this approach, we admit that it took a long time for us to establish in the current Indian ITS market, but at the same time it has given us a firm standing.
What is the role of ERP in toll plaza management solutions?
ERP is Enterprise wide Resource planning. We have developed and delivered the first Toll ERP for the Indian market. For any big IT infrastructure company that runs a number of toll plazas across the country, it becomes mission-critical to handle human resources, inventory, accounts and audit. The KENT-ITS web ERP handles efficiently all the mission-critical tasks seamlessly. Based on a strong and robust Central Database design and a strong nodal application, handling even 40 or 50 toll plazas across the country becomes very easy. Most importantly, the processes are systems driven and not human resource dependent.
What has been your experience with indigenous development of Automatic Vehicle Classifiers?
The KENT-ITS AVC systems is the outcome of a prolonged and detailed research of the Indian toll market. During our early days, when we tried to represent some of the existing foreign AVC products, we found it very difficult to implement the products as they were in the Indian tolling conditions. Also, the foreign manufacturers were not ready to modify the products for Indian market as the size of the market was very small at that time i.e. the late nineties or early years of this century. To eliminate the dependency and to deliver what the requirement needs were, we developed our own AVC solution.
The solution developed by KENT-ITS is sensor independent, which means we can deliver the system with many sensor options like piezo-resistive, piezo-electric, switch types, fibre optic, optical sensors, etc. The KENT?ITS AVC solution consists of a combination of above sensor options. The overall implementation depends upon the environmental conditions at the site, the commercial viability of the project and also the need of the client.
You offer parking solutions such as the Park Well Management system. What would you say needs to be done to resolve parking problems in major cities in India?
The lack of discipline is the first factor which comes to any ITS engineer?s mind when it comes to parking conditions in India. Unfortunately, the situation is not good but it can improve with better awareness. KENT-ITS has developed a parking application which is a mix of manual parking and RFID based intelligent parking system. The application varies from small condominium parking systems to large shopping malls or public parking areas like airports or bus terminals.