Deputy Municipal Commissioner (special engineering) Dr S Vishwanathan said that after its installation in 50 junctions, the BMC along with the traffic department will study the ATC for three months. “If it is found that ATC is really helping the city and meeting the global standards of reducing traffic delay, then we will go ahead with the second phase,’’ Vishwanathan said.
In ATC, loops of fibre optic cables which act as conductors are embedded at junctions in square tiles of 3 metre by 2 metres. As the vehicles pass, the loops will collect data in terms of queue length and number of vehicles on the junctions and send it to the controller at that signal and the central traffic data control room. After studying the data, the control room sends back the information to the controller indicating it of the time for the signal lights, and accordingly, the signal functions. All this is done in a matter of nano seconds. Mumbai has its central traffic data control room at Worli.
Implementation of the new system is expected to reduce delay in traffic cycle by 10 per cent to 18 per cent as observed globally. Spanish IT firm Telvent GIT SA will be implementing the traffic infrastructure management system for Mumbai. The project, financed by World Bank, is estimated to cost Rs 49 crore.
Vishwanathan said that considering implementation of ATS in other cities the authorities are hopeful it would work for Mumbai traffic as well. “Though it will not cut down the traffic time by a large extent, the new system will help in optimal distribution of traffic cycle time,’’ he said.