New-age signal lighting system soon

Coloured arrow marks to be used instead of red, green signals

Consider you driving through a ‘T’ junction with free-left turn provision, and you get a red signal.

Would you continue driving even if the signal is red? Or would you stop for the signal even though there is a free left turn?

At many junctions, motorists are often perplexed as to which course to follow. To get rid of this dilemma, the traffic police are coming up with a new set of signal lighting, in which coloured arrow marks will be used instead of plain red and green signals.

Observing that the current signal system is confusing, city traffic chief Amit Garg feels that the new signals displaying arrows will be of great help to commuters.

“I realised that there was confusion among motorists as to what the red signal exactly mean, while I was driving from the Indo-American Cancer Hospital side and was proceeding towards the Jubilee Hills Checkpost,” he explains. Many motorists stop at the red light even at junctions that have free-left turn, and despite the penalty for jumping signals was increased to Rs.1,000, the tendency has been on the rise.In the new signal aspects, installed under the Hyderabad Traffic Integrated Management System (H-TRIMS), the red signal means that all traffic should stop irrespective of the free left turn status. Similarly, a green arrow means that traffic can continue in a particular direction, and a red arrow means that traffic cannot continue, Mr. Garg says.

With a combination of synchronised signal timers, intelligent traffic network and clarity in the signal system, traffic flow can be better managed, besides minimising logjams and accompanying delays, he adds.