ITS in Pune Improving commuting and enhancing safety

Speed Limit Violation Detection System

SVDS is similar to RVDS and detects the over-speeding vehicles. A total of ten systems have been installed at selected corridors in the city. The system detects speed violations, takes snapshots and a short video of about five seconds of the violation for the purpose of booking the driver. The snapshot and video are transmitted to the Central Control Room through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for using as evidence for booking the driver. The SVDS monitors violations and generates reports similar to the RDVS.

Area Traffic Control System

An ATCS is an intelligent traffic control system that reduces vehicle delays and stoppages at traffic intersections by optimising traffic signal timings in real-time, using data from vehicle detectors. Optimising traffic signal timing has been recognised as one of the most cost-effective methods for reducing travel time and improving commuting speeds in urban transport systems. CDAC Thiruvananthapuram and KELTRON have developed an indigenous ATCS especially suited to Indian roads and traffic conditions. But this is difficult with the fixed time-control type traffic controllers used till now in India. The data on which the timings of the fixed time-control controller are set is often outdated and cannot respond to new challenges in road and traffic conditions. These controllers do not change their timings when a certain corridor experiences an increase in traffic flow or demand. Also, the system cannot respond dynamically to unpredictable traffic events and needs since it uses pre-calculated timing plans, e.g. the system does not respond automatically to accidents, which in turn cause loss of capacity in the network. The fixed time control traffic controllers also do not respond to changes in traffic patterns over time. All these drawbacks are corrected by an ATCS.

An ATCS consists of a traffic signal controller, vehicle detectors, a communication network, an application software and a central control station. The system operates in a closed loop, evaluating the real time demand and properly updating network signal timings.

However, there are many challenges in implementing an ATCS in India. Dr Muralidharan says, “Vehicles on Indian roads do not observe lane discipline. Thus, a vehicle entering a particular stretch of road on a particular lane might not be in the same lane when it arrives at an intersection. There is a very high mix of traffic on the roads cars, two wheelers, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, and often bullock carts. There are many side roads while vehicles are often parked right on the road. All this makes it difficult to take a correct measure of the traffic count. Often roads do not have footpaths, and where present, footpaths are occupied by stalls and vendors, forcing pedestrians to use the roads. Added to this is the frequent network failure and data loss due to power failure.”

Many demand-actuated traffic control systems are already implemented in the West but these systems have limitations for their use in India. Their control strategies are not well addressed for the high heterogeneity and limited lane discipline in India mentioned above and also, they are quite expensive.

CoSiCoSt – An indigenous ATCS

Against this background, CDAC Thiruvananthapuram and KELTRON have developed an ATCS called Composite Signal Control Strategy (CoSiCoSt) which takes into account typical Indian road conditions in its design. CoSiCoSt is a distributed network model which has in-built measures to compensate for network failure and power failure. The system is quite scalable with an option of a phased implementation depending on the availability of funds.

Vehicle sensors or detectors at the start and exit lines of the traffic intersection collect vehicle count data. Traditionally, loop detectors were used to detect vehicles. But now camera based vehicle detectors are preferred over loop detectors as they have become cheaper. In India, the roads are often dug up often which affects the loop detectors as they are buried in the road. The traffic signal controller, on the other hand, dynamically generates the signal timings for the intersection – it takes about one or two seconds to continue or terminate a green signal.

The Control Centre computes a green signal actuation time for each approach of the intersection based on an analysis of the demand trends at the approaches. The traffic controller is given the option to override this preset green signal actuation time in case of heavy demand on any of the approaches or if the demand does not satisfy the value predicted by the Control Centre. The controller then intimates this new green signal time to the Control Centre for update and audit in a feedback loop. The system is scalable, It can operate in different modes ranging from an independent intersection control model to a corridor control model with distributed time synchronisation to ATCS.

According to Srinivas Bonala, Additional City Engineer (Projects), Pune Municipal Corporation the implementation of the ATCS project involved a lot of research and development, right from developing a city-specific software, laying optic fibre cables, to actually connecting 32 signals.

ATCS has been installed at 67 intersections in Pune spread over fifteen major corridors. The ATCS Central Control Room (CCR) is setup at the Swargate BRT Terminal, Satara Road and all the ATCS nodes are connected to the CCR.

CDAC Thiruvananthapuram has appointed five agencies to offer this technology throughout the country: KELTRON, Trivandrum, Bharat Electronics Ltd, Bangalore, Webel Mediatronics Ltd (WML), Kolkata, Shakti Enterprises, Jaipur and Nucleonics, Pune. Besides Pune, a similar system has been installed in Jaipur as well. ATCS is also being implemented in Kolkata by KELTRON and in Ahmedabad by WML.

An independent study on the impact of ATCS on the traffic situation was conducted by M/s. Consulting Engineering Services (India) Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai. The result was as follows: Average commuting speed increased between 2%-12%; average delay in commuting speed was reduced by 11%-30%; the time saving was worth Rs. 0.83 crores annually in 2006 and the fuel savings was to the tune of Rs. 4.77 crores. Total savings from the system was calculated at about Rs. 5.6 crores.

Passenger Information System for BRTS Corridor

The Passenger Information System (PIS) is a real-time bus information system used on the 15.3kms long BRTS corridor on the Satara-Solapur Road. The PIS system generates trip information of every bus which can be viewed and stored. There are 133 BRTS buses and 29 BRTS bus stops at present. On the BRTS buses, the details of the present and next bus stops are displayed in English and Marathi on red LED matrix displays and an announcement is made of the next bus stop. At the bus stops too, the displays and announcements of the expected arrival and departure times of buses are made. The current location of the bus is sent to the Central Control Room (CCR) which updates the displays at the bus stops dynamically without any time lag. The display boxes are 2’x1′ inside buses and 2’x4′ at the bus stops. The PIS generates the following reports: Trip report – number of trips a bus makes every day, week and month, Speed report – speed violations by a bus in a day, week and month and Halt Report – halt timing of the bus at every bus stop.

The CGRAPS project has yielded some concrete improvements in the traffic situation in Pune. Traffic congestion at major junctions has reduced by about 50% which, in turn, has reduced fuel consumption by ten percent. Passenger wait time and commuting time have also been cut down by half. Accidents have reduced by 20%. There has also been improved monitoring and management of traffic flow and hazardous goods. And above all, it has led to a markedly better enforcement with increased detection of red signal, speed and parking violations.