Not long ago all the major traffic junctions in the twin cities had sported signal timers informing motorists the time left before they could speed their way through.
Six months ago, traffic authorities had embarked on an ambitious journey to modernise the entire signalling system and ever since the work on Hyderabad Traffic Integrated Management System (H-TRIMS) began most junctions have been divested of these devices.
But senior police officials promise that it is not a lost cause and timers will once again guide the ever-in-hurry city motorists. A junction-by-junction survey has already been completed to ascertain the time taken by traffic coming from different sides during peak and non-peak hours. To make signal timers efficient they will be synchronised with the traffic flow, said Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Amit Garg.
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Just installing timers will only result in showing people the amount of time left for green or red signal to go off, but by synchronising them, the traffic flow can be optimised, he explained. The data has been shared with H-TRIMS contractor, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and timers too will be installed soon, he informed.
The delay in installing timers in the new signal aspects being taken up under H-TRIMS project was because the original contract did not incorporate these devices, he said.
But, realising their importance, the police officials later pursued the case and incorporated timers into the original contract and the cost of timers was compensated by dropping two out of seven Variable Message Boards that were in the contract.
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H-TRIMS project, when implemented, would connect all traffic lights into one single network to optimise the duration of time available for the peak-time traffic.