This high-tech traffic management system — area traffic control (ATC) — has started changing the face of the city’s traffic system at central business district (CBD).

Guided by giant processor, the ATC system reduces ‘human error’ to a large extent. It covers 95 major road intersections of the city. While Keltron has put the system in place, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) was the consultant and project manager.

“Apart from monitoring traffic, our system is adept to respond the distress calls and maintains surveillance at public places and VIP areas,” said Commissioner of Police R K Pachnanda.

After some successful trials in some crossings, the system was put in place after a lot fine-tuning with the traffic pattern of a particular road intersection. The traffic patterns vary from one crossing to another.

ATC was tried at APC Road-Moulali crossing, the APC Road-M G Road crossing and the APC Road-Beleghata Main Road crossing with some success. Magnetic loops were installed under the road surface and cameras were placed on signal pole in the crossings where magnetic loop may not work because of various reasons.

For instance, tram lines posed a problem for magnetic-loop laying job. “In those cases, we have installed virtual sensors in the form of close-circuit cameras that can gauge the traffic flow from a height,” said Additional Commissioner (III), Debasish Roy.

These magnetic loops and cameras act as sensors to gauge the traffic volume on a particular road at any given point of time. The study of these sensors goes to the central processing units. The CPU, which is collecting thousands such evaluations, gives the best possible signal command. The signal changes according to command.

Since the system takes care of traffic flow management, traffic police personnel are used more for enforcement, said an officer.

ATC currently covers a wide area. “It covers Strand Road in the west, AJC Bose Road in the south, AJC-APC Road in the east and Mahatma Gandhi Road in the north as its circumference. All roads and signals within this periphery fall under this system,” said a senior traffic police officer.

The Kolkata police has also digitized records of about 6 lakh households, streets, pavements, banks, ATMs, water bodies, traffic signals, mosques, churches and temples in Kolkata. “If anyone makes any distress-call, his or her address and location will pop-up in our digitized map. It would be easier for police to locate the distress caller and resolve the issue”.

The system has also incorporated a critical-public-place surveillance system. Here, close circuit cameras installed in all major public places and VIP areas monitor important and sensitive public places.

In its first phase, 93 close circuit TV cameras is being installed in major traffic intersections and public places. Later, 400 such cameras will be installed in the city. Police can monitor suspicious movement round-the-clock. The city police has put GPS (Global Positioning System) to find out the exact location of its emergency flying squad vehicles.

But human intervention at some point of time would be indispensable. In case of massive rally or some major chaos, any system is bound to fail. So from the complete automatic mode, the system could be switched to manual mode. Then the traffic personnel will operate signal according to the ground situation of the area.