National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Advances Road Safety and Traffic Management

NHAI, the National Highways Authority of India, is taking steps to implement the cutting-edge Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) on national highways and expressways. This system is designed to efficiently handle road incidents, enforce speed limits, and maintain compliance with various regulations on these vital roadways.

Exploring the Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) ATMS comprises a network of intelligently integrated roadside equipment, working in tandem to ensure the safety and security of travelers. Its objectives encompass ensuring smooth traffic flow and rapid responses to unforeseen incidents. Impressively, this system has already been implemented on approximately 3,000 kilometers of India's National Highways.

How Does ATMS Operate?

ATMS is intricately linked to the transport department's vehicle database (RTOs). It identifies vehicles without valid documentation and shares this data with local traffic authorities for issuing appropriate citations. The system identifies vehicles by capturing their number plates, providing information on insurance, age, pollution certification, and CNG kit testing. All this data is accessible due to ATMS's connection with the RTO database. Moreover, ATMS not only captures number plate photos but also alerts authorities if travelers are not wearing seat belts.

NHAI's Additional Road Safety Initiatives NHAI is committed to improving safety on highways and is considering the use of GIS technology for analyzing drone videos and Network Survey Vehicle data to identify safety concerns on highways. Additionally, NHAI is providing 15 days of mandatory Road Safety Audit Training to its engineers, with successful completion of this training being a key criterion for engineers' promotion to managerial positions.

Key Insights Objective: NHAI aims to enhance road safety, reduce incident response times, and facilitate digital enforcement on national highways and expressways.

Prominent Features of the New Standards

1. Creation of digital highways with integrated utility corridors along national highways, which involves the development of optic fiber cable (OFC) infrastructure.
2. Replacement of existing VIDS cameras with the Video Incident Detection and Enforcement System (VIDES) to prioritize digital traffic rule enforcement.
3. Installation of cameras at 10-kilometer intervals along National Highways, with their feeds integrated at command and control centers located every 100 kilometres.
4. Integration of the vehicle speed detection system (VSDS) into VIDES, optimizing the use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras.
5. VIDES can alert route patrol vehicles, ambulances, generate e-challans, relay alerts to nearby variable messaging boards, or send notifications through the 'Rajmargyatra' mobile app to nearby travellers, depending on the detected incident.
6. These measures actively contribute to disaster management by providing vital data for effective planning and implementation.
7. Online sharing of highway status and essential information is facilitated, benefiting both agencies and highway users.