Maharashtra : Govt floats six tenders for ITMs to curb highway accidents

The Government has issued six tenders to provide State Highways extending over 2900 kilometres, including 840 kilometres of black stop (crash-prone) with Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS). The State Transport Commissioner Vivek Bhimanwar made this announcement on Sunday.

This will include the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the Mumbai-Nashik-Nagpur Samruddhi Mahamarg. They have been chosen because of their high rate of crashes. However, the ITMS is soon going to use technology to improve road safety and lower infractions.

The ITMS will have multiple features from an adaptive traffic control system (ATCS) which will be setting up a command centre to manage violations from a cutting-edge control room to the Automatic Number Plate Recognition, (ANPR) which will have high-resolution cameras to read the number on which the vehicle is registered and get all the details about the car and its owner to a Red Light Violation Detection ( RLVD) which recognizes and captures vehicles that overlook red lights. 

Bhimanwar said, “Three tenders are for six major Highways in Maharashtra covering 2,100 kilometres and another three tenders will cover the balance 840 kilometres which will have several black spots. We will cover all the black spots and reduce fatalities to a greater extent. And by 2030, the department aims to reduce 50% more fatalities compared to now.” 

Furthermore, amidst increasing accidents, commuters should also be careful while driving on Highways.

According to a Police official on Mumbai-Pune Expressway, “Motorist should not overspeed and not cross the speed limit, secondly drinking and driving is also one of the major cause of accidents on expressways, people should avoid drinking and driving, thirdly racing with other vehicles should be avoided, in such cases the vehicle loses its control due to overspend which leads to accidents and even fatalities, moreover using of phone should be avoided while driving on Expressway.”