TRAFFICINFRATECH EXPO 2011 On the road to success

Magnetic Auto Control, a 50-year-old barrier manufacturing company from Germany which has an Indian presence since 11 years, had many visitors too. Said T Ravi Shankar, its General Manager, “We are pleased with the response we received at the fair. I am also very happy to learn that TrafficInfraTech magazine is now the official media partner for Traffex at Birmingham, the UK.” He added, “I hope you realise that you now have a big responsibility on your shoulders — the responsibility of bringing out the Expo on a regular basis that the luminaries of the Indian Traffic Industry have placed on you.”

Kirti Nayak, Regional Sales Manager — North & East India, Kistler Instruments (Pte) Ltd, which is into mechanical accelerations, ports, weigh-in-motion, etc., was sure his company would participate in the next TrafficInfraTech Expo to be held in Mumbai in May 2012. “Our technology is different from the existing technology. Hence, we are happy that key customers like NHAI, CRRI and senior people from Safety Departments visited us. We interacted with them and understood that toll specially is a focus point in India at present. We are very happy we participated in this exhibition. We will participate again.”

Colin Gibson, Vice President (Product Development), Diamond Traffic Products from Oakridge, USA had come with traffic vehicle classifiers for roadways and highways with sensors. “Traffic is a growing industry in the Indian market and we thought it was a good decision to come here and display our products along with our distributing partner, ASJ. The attendance here has been very good and we appreciate the opportunity because all the contacts we made here are very valuable. A lot of internal companies and external agencies have come that are looking to purchase and install our products.” Gibson was appreciative of the way the venue was done up too. “The transformation of space and exposition has been really incredible. I would put this on par with very international standards. It looks very nice and very professional. We are very happy we came here.”

Liliano Pitton, Export Area Manager of Italy’s Solari di Udine which already has an Indian presence and is into Highways PMV, Variable Message Signs and Access Control Management, said, “India is a growing country and the next major business for sure is in the highways, roadways and traffic management systems in the country. We supply to around 25 Indian airports but now we are looking at expanding the market. We see a lot of interested people here, just as we had expected. We understand something better now about the traffic management system in India and we wish to be one of the leaders in this market, specially in the highway segment, in the next few years.”

Rajaram Subramaniam, Chief Opearting Officer, Metalmeccanica Fracasso (part of Italy’s Fracasso group), was happy his company’s new technologies in noise and crash barriers could be exposed to the right people. “We are very keen to bring our new management to India. This is the right forum to display our products as it is one of those rare areas where experts from the said domains have come.” Subramaniam got “good” visitors from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and NHAI and also, big contractors and consultants. “People showed great interest in our products. We have subsequent meetings lines up after this. It should be good for us. VIS has done a pretty good job of getting all relevant people under one roof. The products here are generally complimentary to each other and that’s wonderful. This is like a one stop shop.”

Imeva Spa, another Italian company in the field of crash barriers, was at the show too. Ugo Prini, its Export Manager, said, “We are one of the leaders in Europe for guard rails and steel culverts. We believe in the Indian market as India is now one of the most developing countries in the world. Till 2015, there is a programme for constructing 50,000 km of new road in it. And we produce safety barriers for roads. So, that makes it the most important country in the world for us for the future. There is tremendous participation and we have had so many guests. Now that I have put my nose in the market, I will come for your show again – that is a promise.”

Bharati Global Info India Ltd which is into developing software applications around different kinds of technologies for traffic, vehicles, RFID and parking management systems, too participated. Neeraj Kaptiyal, its Business Head (Sales & Marketing), said, “We were looking for some good companies and we got them. We had visitors from CTS, Schneider, etc. They are basically our target visitors because our company has a policy not to work directly with the end user we work through channel partners. More than the quantity, it was the quality of the visitor that was good. We got what we were looking for. It has been a very nice show and we would definitely like to participate next year.”

Croatia based company Telegra, with an Indian presence, had participated to display its ITS expertise summarising in toll and HTMS. Its CEO, Fredrick Balentovich came down from Italy and made a presentation in the seminar. Gurpreet Singh Basra, the company’s Managing Director, said, “India is a growing market for us. We were looking for some exhibition which would give us a great mileage. This has been a good platform as we have met a lot of new concessionaires here. We are very pleased to be attending this show and are pretty satisfied with the amount of people who have come and the interactions we had with various concessionaires. We are very happy with the seminar too. We will certainly be participating in your next show.”

Varun Ratan, Business Manager, Trans Metalite India Ltd was happy with the exposure his road safety products including pothole and crack repairing machines got. “We participated in this show to have a broader view of the market in and around Delhi. It has been worth it as we have received a lot of queries. And the feedback for the products was also good.”

The most important point that came across at the Expo was that most of the traffic and transport companies had been waiting for a strong platform to interact and display their products and services. Till now, the trade shows related to traffic had dealt only with specific verticals and were not integrated on such a grand scale.