Bengaluru cops launch ‘ASTraM’ to tame city’s traffic

Bengaluru: Aiming to design effective data-powered traffic management strategies, the Bengaluru Traffic Police on Saturday launched ASTraM, a 'smart traffic engine', that will provide real-time congestion alerts to jurisdictional officers every 15 minutes, besides sending periodic congestion updates to various stakeholders.

The launch of ASTraM (Actionable intelligence for Sustainable Traffic Management) is among several initiatives taken ahead of the National Road Safety Month observed from January 15 to February 14.

The engine also includes dashboard analytics that will automatically tabulate traffic volume in metres (congestion length), vehicle count and type, safety and road conditions across the city.

Besides this, a simulation and prediction tool trained with the city's traffic flow over a period of time will predict congestion on different routes throughout the day. The tool will help traffic police decide alternative routes to ensure movement doesn't come to a standstill, especially when they plan traffic advisories for an event. Over time, this will help them draw a comparative analysis of the city's traffic movement and congestion levels and accordingly allocate resources for smooth management.

With the Traffic Management Centre being the central coordination point, the engine will also include a bot enabling the traffic police to immediately report any on-ground incidents, which will be used to relay real-time updates to road users, M N Anucheth, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), told DH.

"Currently, 4,500 traffic police personnel are using this to report any accidents, waterlogging or incidents with an immediate traffic impact. We are also looking at how to make this available to the public to report accidents, which will happen soon," he told DH.

The traffic police are also using 10 drone cameras, five of which were procured from the Safe City Project, across major roads and junctions in the city's 10 divisions to monitor traffic movement and congestion during peak hours.