KOLKATA: After a successful pilot run, signals at 500 odd road intersections will now be synchronised with real-time data provided by Google Live Traffic for a seamless movement of traffic across the city. Kolkata Police tracked live traffic, which is being crowd-sourced by Google, while surveying road intersections and found traffic data accurate and reliable to be fed into the signal algorithm system that now dictates traffic signals.The signal cycles will now largely be dictated by the real-time traffic data by Google. Accordingly, the algorithm will work to ease traffic further by sending command to signal consoles at traffic intersections. The signal will then change accordingly. Google Live Traffic information to its maps is now available in more than a dozen Indian cities, including Kolkata.“Our earlier experiments with sensor-based or camerabased traffic data saw limited success. This is why we were looking for data which is real-time, yet encapsulates the entire dimension of the traffic issue. Google Live Traffic, so far, is the best data available with us,” said Vineet Goyal, additional commissioner (I) of Kolkata Police. Results of the pilot study have also been very encouraging, he added.Kolkata Police has phased out stand-alone signals across the city. There was hardly any interaction between two signals, though function of one signal is completely dependent on the other. In the earlier phase, each signal needed to be synchronised separately on the basis of old data. The process was not only cumbersome, the signal cycles were also static.Now, each signal is part of the city’s signal network through Wi-Fi. This has enabled one signal interact with the next. Besides, the data captured by CCTVs become handy in providing secondary data to the signal network. The satellite images determine the volume of traffic. The algorithm will now work based on multiple data to come closer to reality.The system also has an alert system. If the congestion is too thick and an intersection is grid-locked, an automatic alert will be sent out to the local traffic guard for ground-level corrective measures. Even if manual intervention is required in case of massive traffic dislocation, the algorithm gives a time frame for probable period for manual function of signal.

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