Performance focused Adaptive Traffic Signal Control System Effective operations along with implementation

Adaptive Traffic Signal Control systems put in place in Hyderabad in 2021 has, in fact, started giving results, says  Venkat Subbarao Chunduru, Director, Arcadis IBI India

Adaptive Traffic Signaling System has been implemented by Arcadis IBI in Greater Hyderabad area with more than 380 traffic signals including pedestrian traffic signals for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and Traffic Police of Hyderabad. ATS system   works based on the inputs of dynamic traffic conditions at the junction and across various junctions whereas the traditional fixed time traffic signal works based on the timing set into the system. ATS system ensures that the timings are optimally split among different approaches of the road as per the traffic intensity. The key benefits include reduced delays thus reduction in travel times, safety with conflict monitoring and also reduced green starvation and emission savings as well as by product of reduced delays.

The ATCS technology has been developed in India by Center for Development and Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a Government of India based research organization with which Arcadis IBI has TOT partnership for implementation of the system. The algorithm, as part of ATCS technology called, Composite Signal Control Strategy (CoSiCoSt) caters to lane-free, heterogeneous traffic operations and it offers a highly scalable architecture with limited data requirement for signal operations. It optimizes the traffic signal timings through a weighted combination of delay and stops for a road traffic network in real-time. It uses adaptive traffic signal controllers, i.e., C-DAC Urban Traffic Control Equipment (CUTE). The detector input from each approach of the junction gets processed by the junction controller and communicates with the central system for optimized signal timing in adaptive traffic control.

The other salient features of the system, with corresponding benefits, implemented in Hyderabad include:

• Central monitoring and Control help in Signal Timing & Mode setting from Control Center reduce field personnel deployment & Easier to control.
• Actuated Traffic Signal Control reduces green starvation by cutting the green when threshold gap occurs and Reduce delays for users at isolated junctions.
• Corridor Traffic Signal Synchronization: Reduce no. of stops & Reduce delays for users Improves corridor speeds.
• Pelican Signaling System with Push button for safer crossing with minimum delay for vehicles
• Emergency Vehicle Priority from control center
• Digital Asset Management with each asset QR Codes helps in tracking the inventory.
• Mobile App based Maintenance Ticket Management System to handle process & SLA management.
• Performance monitoring to understand traffic operations efficiency.

There are many factors involved in effective implementation and operation of the system starting from selection of locations for signalization to placement of equipment/detector to ensuring availability and reliability of system. With the performance-oriented approach, the project has been planned and executed considering the end outcomes of operational efficiency as key KPI and hence, it started bringing results as anticipated.

Congestion has been reduced/consistent on key corridors with the increased in travel speed of around 2.5-3kmph which is around 15%. The number of signals with manual intervention has also been reduced significantly. Along with the adaptive traffic signaling system, the ITMS implemented along with other infrastructure improvements by the authorities are contributing to the results.

The results are possible with combined efforts from parallel strategic improvements by stakeholders on the corridors and junctions such as infrastructure improvements, bottleneck removals and effective enforcement along with traffic engineering-based design and operational strategies applied into the traffic management. It would be very critical to apply and operate with traffic engineering principles in day-to-day operations for effective results as system cannot be operated in similar operational strategy for entire city. Another aspect of achieving results is the continuous monitoring of performance and responding to that by adopting different operational strategies to ensure smoother and safer traffic flow always improved or consistent.