Congested cities? Computer code comes to the rescue...
by Frederick Noronha, Indo-Asian News Service
PANAJI (Goa), July 4 -- Can computer code make your ride less smoother
as you traverse the congested roads of urban India? Goa-based Anupam
Saraph is currently working on a tool he hopes would make traffic
management smoother in 300+ of the country's larger cities (called Class
I cities).
"Nobody really is looking at traffic as a whole. Police look after law
and order. RTOs (regional transport offices) licences people and
vehicles. Municipalities see to constructing and widening of roads. Town
planners decide where to put up 'attractors' of traffic like markets.
But no one is ensuring what the traffic scenario will look like for you
and me," says he.
To overcome this disjointed approach with an IT approach, Saraph (39) is
working on a traffic simulator -- a software program written in the
programming language Python -- that would give urban planners an idea
beforehand of the likely impact of any traffic-management changes they
envisage.
On the computer screen, road maps of specific city roads come-up. Using
this, urban planners can 'simulate' what impact planned changes in
road-design would have for a specific area.
"We've got ready some initial algorithms for stimulating traffic. We
have also created prototypes for demonstration," says this former
molecular biologist. He stresses that complex problems like traffic
management need to be looked at from the 'holistic' perspective.
So far, simulations have been worked on for some road networks in Pune,
for the purpose of demonstrations. These include exercises on Pune's
Mahatma Gandhi Road, East Street (in the Cantonment area), J.M.Road,
Apte Road, and Ferguesson College Road.
What this software plans to do is to study the impact of any planned
change, before it is actually carried out. "You study the impact of
changes on a computer, rather than on the road itself. So people can
take a rational choice on what would be the best option," says Saraph.
Data needed would be a road-map for each city being studied. Each change
in the road-map would then simulate its impacts. "You would get an idea
of under what conditions it works, or which of the different traffic
improvement options works best," says Saraph.
Dr Saraph notes that fly-overs -- even though these have become an
attractive option for decision-makers in a number of Indian cities of
late -- hardly solve the problem. "Fly-overs simply expand the carrying
capacity of the roads (temporarily), so push the entire city to have
more and more traffic flowing through it," he says.
India's population grew 3.5 times from 1901 to 1991. But, in the same
period, the urban population has grown a phenomenal nine times. In 1951,
for instance, there were only 51 urban agglomeration with a population
of 100,000 or more. Today the figure has crossed 301.
Yet, urban areas remain critical to the economy. Urban areas in India
contribute an estimated 55 per cent of the country GDP (gross domestic
product).
Saraph, who has set up the Institute for Change Research in Panaji's
Alto Porvorim suburb, says his aim is to get his tool across to the
over-300 Class I cities in India.
"This software will be free for use by the commonman. For the
authorities, a slightly different version costing a nominal Rs 1000 to
5000 will be charged, based on the funding we receive," says Saraph.
He says the MOIT (Ministry of Information Technology) has responded
favourably, but the project got bogged down due to lack of recognition
as a scientific and industrial research organisation.
"By traffic simulators, people understand software which gives you an
idea of how the scene looks as you drive past. The goal of this one is
to study, in advance, how to improve traffic flows in any city," says
he. (ENDS)
Contact Dr Anupam Saraph by email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact the writer: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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| Frederick Noronha, Freelance Journalist |
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