Re-defining Indian Highways

What are Smart Highways?

Smart highways deliver customised and affordable services to its users adapting to their changing needs and circumstances while ensuring commercial objectives of its stakeholders and transparency and competitiveness. Core objectives of safety, economy and convenience shall remain the base. Smart system will have the ability to monitor itself and correct itself to provide the level of service that is demanded of it.

Framework emphasises on converting highways from physical infrastructure into a pool of services designed, deployed and managed centred around customer/end user. These services range from providing traveller information – accurate and real-time information before and during their travel, making available facilities during travel such as food, toilets, stay, medical and emergency apart from other leisure services through network of service providers, electronic payment options etc.,

Smart Highway framework attempts to enhance user experience through services stitched around the three core constituents of highway i.e. physical infrastructure, vehicle and driver keeping them integrated to work like a single system. While keeping the focus on offering services to its customers/users, it allows for constant communication amongst the three core constituents i.e., physical infrastructure, vehicle and driver/user and generating data for other stakeholders to structure their offerings and meet commercial objectives.

Key to success holds on to design and delivery of these highway services built on technological advancements such as data analytics, big data, cloud computing, mobility and social media capitalising on the policy and business environment such as start-up India, make in India etc. in order to make the same affordable to users and commercially viable to service providers.

Smart highways shall deliver expectations of all its stakeholders in efficient and cost effective way. Smart highway contains the intelligence that allows for flexible decision making, to deliver not only a safer but a more efficient and convenient travel experience be it a private traveller or goods carrier. Smart highway shall build different formats of service delivery to cater to different user level based on their level of technology adaptiveness, maturity levels to comprehend the information and communication capabilities. Smart Highway shall ensure returns for its investors and for Operators shall facilitate structuring of service delivery to maximise customer satisfaction and also revenue. Smart highways for authority shall ensure transparency and competiveness of the services and not biased to any specific section of community, technology and business entity.

Smartness shall be embedded in every element of the system considering entire life cycle, including organisations and enterprises responsible for planning, development, deployment and operation so that they are all in harmony and fully support the best operation of itself and rest of the system.

Smart highway apart from efficient incident management shall also focus on incident prevention which is possible only when timely and accurate information is provided to drivers in a format that is easy to understand and convenient to use.