A team of researchers from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University’s Centre of Excellence for Disaster Management and Transport might have come up with an answer for Hyderabad’s traffic problems. The team, after researching for eight long months, has formulated a plan that would, in theory, decongest and streamline critical roads in a city that is struggling to host its ever-increasing population.
The plan is to use a technology-driven system that integrates computer vision, emotion detection, artificial intelligence and robotic interfaces in order to accommodate many more vehicles than the roads can handle currently. This would increase the average speed on these roads from 12kmph to 40kmph.
The research team was led by Dr KM Lakshmana from the Civil Engineering department in JNTUH. He has now been roped in by the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation to ascertain the feasibility of this plan at Wipro Junction in Gachibowli.
“The idea is to ensure lane discipline across a stretch of road by setting up a monitoring network at pre-determined intervals,” said Lakshmana. He gave the example of the road from IIIT Junction to ORR, via this junction. “A U-turn could be set up at every 500 metres and a junction at every 2km if required. Wherever these junctions and U-turns come up, they must be of a ‘flare design’ and with a transition zone to accommodate excess traffic,” he said.
At these junctions, there will two cameras with sophisticated sensors. “These cameras will have AI and emotion sensors. They would generate imaginary lanes that would be able to identify vehicles that change lanes unnecessarily. Emotion sensors would identify vehicles that brake abruptly, accelerate or decelerate suddenly. This would help in assessing lane discipline,” said Lakshmana. As per the plan, if one wants to change a lane, it can be only done at a marked transition zone at U-turns placed 500 metres from each other.
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Over and above this, he also proposes to have pedestrian crossings every 500 metres, along with U-turns, junctions and bus bays. “Across a said road, from point A to B, the traffic signals must go red together in order to ensure vehicles can use the U-turn at the same time. This can happen for about 40 seconds,” he added.
While this elaborate network sounds sophisticated, the researcher’s preliminary investigations note that something like this would be required only for roughly 300-400 km of road. “There is over 10,000 km of roads in GHMC limits and in this, 300kms-400kms are polluted, congested and see heavy traffic. This system could be installed on these to streamline the traffic and bring the speed up to 40kmph,” added Lakshmana. The TSIIC is looking into the idea of implementing this plan near Wipro Junction.
