With the number of vehicles in the city rising at an alarming rate, the Kolkata Police has put in place an intelligent traffic monitoring system based on Red Hat Linux, the iconic open-source operating system, which would control information from cameras and sensors.

In the first such project in India, the intelligent traffic monitoring software will monitor and send the data to a network operating centre (NOC) at Lalbazar, where a core team will act in real time to control the flow. “The project was sanctioned in November 2005 and is part of a larger project for which we have received a grant of Rs 25 crore from the Government of India,” said K Hari Rajan, the additional commissioner of police (traffic).

The area traffic controlling system has already been installed in three crossings of the city as a pilot project. The system is in place at the APC Road-Moulali crossing, the APC Road-Mahatma Gandhi road crossing and the APC Road-Beleghata Main Road crossing. Ninety-five other crossings of the city will get the facility by May this year.

Metal loops have been installed under the road surface to act as sensors to help gauge the traffic flow at any given point in time. “It works on a technique so that the traffic lights change on their own after gauging the flow of traffic,” says Hari Rajan, adding the instruments are in place and installing the system in the crossings will not take much time.