A significant growth in road traffic in India presents a good opportunity for the ITS business

Ramakrishna Sachdev, Director?Marketing and Finance, Steria India describes the opportunities for ITS service providers in India and the company?s solutions for the market?both existing and potential ones

What are some of the unique features of the ITS solutions that Steria India provides for transportation agencies?

Steria Intelligent Transportation solutions enable the secure movement of people, products and vehicles. From the development and provision of supervisory control systems monitoring and regulating train traffic and real-time air traffic management simulation tools, to solutions for equipment supervision and integrated multi-modal transport, we work in partnership with our clients.

Our solutions connect passengers,transport systems and resources in real time to allow efficient, convenient and low carbon movement within and in and out of the city. Maintenance and servicing is facilitated by on-board sensors to ensure optimum utilisation.

Public transport is facilitated around the city with multi-mode solutions mixing the use of private transport and parking facilities on the outskirts of cities with metros and buses connecting travellers with the heart of the city.

Delivering the benefits of Smart Transport relies heavily on massively integrated systems, information and services. These combine together to optimise the flow of transport and reduce wastage of time and energy and the generation of unnecessary CO2 at peak travelling times.

What is your outlook of the different segments of the transportation sector that you service in India?

Steria?s India strategy is to establish a strong footprint for our solutions for safe, sustainable and intelligent transport management. Steria works throughout the transport sector, serving road and urban transport providers. More than 35 years? experience has allowed us to develop deep business process knowledge in critical transport areas including traffic management, parking and taxi management, automatic road violation enforcement, simulation for transport studies and operational software validation.

In India, Steria can help to improve transport efficiency and reduce traveller stress. We have an aggregation capability that allows us to bring knowledge and expertise from one sector to the other so that we share best practices across the transport domain. New transport solutions are constantly being developed as we help our clients optimise service quality, provide real-time travel information and secure the movement of people, products and vehicles.

Steria?s intelligent road traffic control solution ?Traffic Expert? has been used in many countries in the world for urban traffic supervision & control systems, car parks, tolls and tunnels. How do you see its scope in India?

A significant growth in road traffic in India presents a good opportunity for the ITS business aimed at ensuring safe, secure and sustainable transportation. Road and highway authorities are taking steps bringing the construction and maintenance of National Highways network in the country to global standards. Over 150 new national highways and over 15 six-lane highway projects have been built in process. This calls for deployment of area-wide signal control, parking information and advanced public transportation and toll collection systems among others. A few ITS projects have already been introduced in India in metropolitan cities like Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune and plans for implementation in smaller cities are underway.

Our intelligent Traffic Expert solution offers the ability to acquire real-time traffic information, for example on congestion or incidents, and to enforce speed control, ramp metering and traffic regulation. Modular and scalable, Traffic Expert supports safer, smoother travel with traffic information and management, in-vehicle telematics services, tunnel control and management and speed enforcement solutions. It enables operators to perform real-time data analysis on the information gathered. Steria Parking Expert provides data in real time and uses advanced systems for equipment supervision such as entry-exit barriers, audio message broadcasting systems, ticketing management and multimedia data processing.

In Singapore, Steria?s TrafficScan solution has been used to provide the Land Transport Authority a highly efficient real-time vehicle data gathering system, one of the core components of urban traffic management. What potential uses do you see for this in the Indian context?

Steria?s TrafficScan system is an advanced transport system that provides motorists with real-time speed information on major roads in Singapore. Land Transport Authority of Singapore has leveraged technology and an innovative use of a taxi dispatch system to gather traffic data on the roads. The data is processed to give traffic speed conditions on the road network and these can be accessed online by motorists to plan their routes for a smooth journey. We?re helping to track 20,000 taxis across Singapore with a monitoring and tracking solution incorporating real-time GPS data collection.

India has the third largest road network in the world, with an average of 20km of new roads being built in India every day. Improving the country?s transport infrastructure to ensure better traffic management options to ease traffic congestion is a key priority. There is an immense opportunity to deploy Steria?s TrafficScan solution on public transport vehicles such as buses, taxis and auto-rickshaws among others for real-time tracking of assets and at the same time disseminating real-time speed information on major roads.

What are Steria?s products and services for the Indian transportation market?

Some of Steria India?s products relevant for the transport sector include:

Traffic Expert: Our intelligent Traffic Expert solution for road traffic control systems offers the ability to acquire real-time traffic information, for example on congestion or incidents. Modular and scalable, Traffic Expert enables operators to perform real-time data analysis on the information gathered. With the right information at the right time, traffic controllers can anticipate events, alert road users, prevent equipment breakdown and coordinate action where required, such as contacting maintenance service providers or the police.

SIRIUS system: This system is designed to control and improve traffic flow and safety during rush hours with a smoother flow of traffic around the French capital. SIRIUS also keeps road users informed on traffic conditions 24 hours a day, seven days a week, enabling them to anticipate and react by identifying incidents and taking remedial action in the event of accidents, road repairs etc.

Parking Expert: It is an efficient car park management solution that covers all operations, from access control to informa- tion for town, railway station and airport car-park users, with a high focus on quality and security. The solution gathers car park data in real-time and generates data flows to feed business applications such as ERP, CRM and BI.

TrafficScan system: This is an advanced transport system that provides motorists with real-time speed information on major roads in Singapore. Land Transport Authority of Singapore leveraged technology and an innovative use of a taxi dispatch system to gather traffic data on the roads. The data is processed to give traffic speed conditions on the road network and these can be accessed online by motorists to plan their routes for a smoother journey.

Electronic toll management: We bring efficiency and reliability in electronic tolling solutions, bearing in mind the need for security and high quality, necessary for maximum business benefits. Cost, security and performance considerations are the key to the implementation of successful electronic tolling operations. The Indian government is keen to adopt the ISO 18000 6C standard in implementation of electronic tolling across the country. Steria India provides cutting edge, interoperable and scalable solutions for e-tolling needs.