Mumbai to get intelligent traffic management

Mumbai: Traffic signals on city roads will soon change in accordance with vehicular movement. In a bid to resolve Mumbaikars’ never-ending traffic woes, the state government has decided to implement the Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) for effective management of traffic on the city roads.

The state Cabinet on Tuesday approved Rs 891.34 crore for the implementation of ITMS, which will be used to streamline vehicular movement on the city roads.

According to state officials, Mumbai’s population is around 1.30 crore and its surface area is 438 square km. There are around 34 lakh vehicles in Mumbai, with 261 out of 1,000 persons in the city owning a vehicle.

“There is a need for an advanced traffic management system to address issues like long travelling hours, expenditure on fuel, traffic jams and its subsequent effect on work efficiency,” an official said.

“The ITMS will involve combined traffic management and planning on all city roads and flyovers,” he added.

Mumbai has road network of around 2,000 kilometre. Of this, 95 per cent of roads are maintained by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), whereas flyovers are built mainly by state agencies like MMRDA, MSRDC and PWD.

“In addition to Mumbai roads, the ITMS project will be implemented on bridges and flyovers. The project will also help in smart signalling, identifying licence number plates, control over-speeding vehicles and illegal parking, trace stolen vehicles and recovery of penalty,” said the official.

In a bid to better manage the city’s vehicular traffic, the BMC had recently introduced a new rule for unauthorised parking. Starting from July 7, the civic body started imposing a penalty, ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000, on those who park their vehicles in no-parking zones.

Although the BMC has been encouraging people to avoid parking on roads and instead utilise Public Parking Lots (PPL), the civic body also accepts that A ward does not have any multi-storey PPLs. The civic body has 26 PPLs that could hold over 1,000 vehicles.

Mumbai may get helipad at BKC

Mumbai may get a helipad at the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) next year. While the MMRDA will build the helipad, it has floated a tender for the management and operation of this helipad, for which it has received three to four expressions of interest. The company which wins the bid will have to plan everything, a MMRDA officer said.

The MMRDA floated the tender a few days ago to which three to four companies have responded. The officer said, “After winning the tender, the company will have to work on its business plan, including air services which will be made available at this helipad. We will only provide the helipad.”

The decision to build a helipad at BKC was taken in accordance with the state government’s helipad policy. “The city is growing and   this helipad has become  a necessity,” the officer said.

“We are waiting for permission from the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). We have informed them about two potential plots at BKC. As soon as we get permission, the work on constructing the helipad will start,” he said.

The MMRDA will finalise land for the flying zone as per DGCA criteria. At present, there are five helipads in the city, including Juhu, Mahalakshmi Racecourse, Raj Bhavan, Navy Nagar and Santacruz Airport. According to the MMRDA official, several companies and hospitals at BKC would utilise the facility.