For the third time in the past four months, city traffic police manually operated traffic signals to facilitate transportation of heart of a brain-dead patient from one hospital to another. As cadaver organ transplant has to be done within a few hours of organ donation by the family of the brain-dead patient, transporting it quickly to the hospital where the transplant has to take place becomes crucial.
If the automatic signal synchronisation project for which the city traffic police have submitted a Detailed Project Report (DPR) three months ago is approved and implemented, then ambulances and fire service vehicles will have no problems in reaching their destinations on time. The signals will turn green automatically whenever the device at the traffic junction detects an approaching ambulance or fire service vehicles.
The State government earmarked Rs. 72 crore for the automatic signal synchronisation project in 2014 budget. The project involves installation of a special software at all traffic junctions, and installation of sensors in ‘108’ ambulances and fire service vehicles. The software is prepared to enable signals to sense sensor-installed vehicles when they are 800 metres away, and automatically the signal turns green and remains so till the vehicle in question passes it. Though the project was initially planned to cover only government ambulances, it was later decided to extend the facility to private hospital ambulances as well, according to sources.
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