Since its launch, the Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway has been getting attention for road accidents and deaths. Taking a step towards making this stretch of the national highway 275 safe for commuters, the authorities are working to install a new artificial intelligence (AI)-based system that ensures better road safety and will also improve digital enforcement, officials aware of the matter told News18.
The new system – Video Incident Detection and Enforcement System (VIDES) – is being implemented to monitor and enforce speed limits, enhance road safety and reduce the number of accidents caused by speeding vehicles, the official from Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) said.
VIDES: SYSTEM TO BE INSTALLED IN 4-5 MONTHS
VIDES will not just help identify and penalise vehicles violating the traffic rules, but can also alert route patrol vehicles, ambulances and send notifications to nearby travellers.
“The VIDES software will provide real-time data on traffic plying through the highways along with details of vehicles not adhering to the traffic rules. It will be accessible through remote location and will be able to provide different dashboards with various analytics on traffic patterns," the official said, requesting anonymity.
With VIDES, the authorities can identify accidents, including collisions and smoke or fire from vehicles in real-time. The system will be able to detect vehicles, which are coming from the opposite direction or are stalled or stationary. It can also identify and alert debris or objects or even animals on the road that can impact traffic or road safety. The system can detect speeding, seatbelt violations and wrong lane or direction driving. “The VIDES software will generate e-challan automatically and integrated with the Vaahan database," they added.
Further, the system can identify vehicles whose class as identified by the camera visually don’t match the class returned from the FASTag mapper API. The system is expected to be installed in the next four-five months, they added.
ATMS UPGRADE
Earlier this month, MoRTH announced that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has upgraded the Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) for enhanced road safety and digital enforcement. The Ministry said that it is being done to improve road safety and reduce incident response time.
“Harnessing latest advancements in AI technology, the initiative will enhance road safety and digital enforcement on National Highways and Expressways," MoRTH had said.
The enhancements include replacing previous VIDS cameras with the newly introduced VIDES that have capability to identify 14 distinct incidents, including triple riding, helmet and seatbelt violations, wrong lane or direction driving, presence of animals on the highway, and pedestrian crossings.
Depending on the detected incident, VIDES will alert route patrol vehicles or ambulances, generate e-challans, relay alerts to nearby variable messaging boards, or send notifications through ‘Rajmargyatra’ mobile app to nearby travellers.
‘120 KILLED IN SIX MONTHS’
The Bengaluru-Mysuru expressway opened to traffic in January. The Rs 8,480-crore project reduced the travel time between the two cities to about 75 minutes from three hours.
Since the launch, a number of fatal accidents has been reported on the stretch.
Official data up to July-end claims that 120 people have been killed in the six-month period on the 118-km expressway.
In one section, from Bengaluru to Nidagatta, a total of 189 accidents and 59 deaths were reported, while in another, between Nidagatta and Mysuru, 209 accidents and 62 deaths took place.
As per the official numbers, the number of deaths has dropped on the Bengaluru- Mysore Highway in the last few months after enhanced enforcement. From around 30 deaths per month in May and June each, the fatalities in July were eight and further dropped to six in August.
On October 14, three members of a family were killed and at least four others were injured when the van they were traveling in collided with a lorry near Ramanagara.
Comments
0 comment