Solving Bangalore's Traffic Problem

The ultimate Formula 1 experience to the riders on Bangalore city roads

Problem

In assignment 1, I had addressed the problem of traffic on Bangalore city roads. The impending problem seems to become more disturbing year on year, with rapid increase in the number of vehicles. It is complemented by the numerous obstructions on the roads such as construction-work, damaged roads, accidents, unorganized speed breakers and traffic signals etc. which jam the major arteries and slow down the traffic, especially during peak hours. During my work life in the last 2 years, I sometimes had to spend even a couple of hours on the outer ring road just to traverse a 2km stretch from my office to home, often contemplating of even walking in the rain back home if that helps me reach faster.

In this assignment (2), I plan to introduce a unique solution that addresses the unwanted obstruction problem, which I believe would provide a no-stop experience to the travelers. I am driven by the believe that it is possible to provide a ‘The ultimate Formula 1 experience to the riders on Bangalore city roads’ by focusing on filtering these obstructions.  

Before discussing the solution, we must first divide the obstructions into 2 buckets. The first type of obstructions are those which develop due to lack of maintenance of the roads. These include damaged roads, breaking down of traffic and street lights and unfinished construction works. The second type of obstructions are those which had been placed to regulate the traffic itself but have now become a problem more than a solution because of the rapid increase in vehicles. These include roads whose width have become under-capacitated, unorganized placement of traffic lights, speed breakers, bus-stops, road diversions, zebra crossings/ barrier breaks and flyovers/ underground tunnels. In this report, I will address the second type of obstructions, those that were once a traffic regulating solution but have now become problematic or redundant.

Why were these physical obstructions brought in the first place? So that the traffic can be directed seamlessly, preventing traffic jams. Why have they now become an issue? They fulfilled their function for a couple of years but were not planned for the long-term and soon led to long queues behind these obstructions. Can they be planned for the long-run, providing benefits for decades instead of just a couple of years? Yes, these obstructions can be planned in such a way if we stop thinking of them as permanent fixtures but as dynamic fixtures which change their characteristics as per need. For instance, what if we can regulate the width of the road depending on the expected traffic for the next 3 hours. Similarly, what if we can place virtual speed breakers at junctions which might be leading to an expected bottleneck till the time the traffic eases. With Augmented reality, 3D Imaging and Laser technology, this is now possible.

Solution

I propose the concept of virtual obstructions, ones which are not tangible but can be seen or heard and most importantly dynamically transformed as per need. Let’s take a couple of scenarios to grasp the concept. (1) If the objective is to slow down the traffic at a particular stretch because the traffic might be becoming denser at a later stretch, creating a possibility of an impending traffic jam, virtual speed breakers through 3D imaging techniques can be activated on the concerned stretch, creating the perception of an actual speed breaker and slowing down the traffic. They would be deactivated when the later traffic conditions get eased (2) We know that the traffic might be denser on one-way in the morning while people are heading to their offices and denser on the opposite stretch in the evening when people are heading back to their homes. Instead of actual barriers between the two opposite running roads, a virtual barrier illuminated by laser light can be activated, with ability to change the position on the width of the road, so that the heavy traffic portion gets expanded and the light traffic portion gets be contracted. The barrier’s position can be dynamically switched in real-time depending on the traffic on two roads. The above virtual obstructions can be applied to other tools such as traffic signals and car-break downs (Augmented reality indicators popping out from that section of the road and can be viewed from far off distance) as well. During heavy rains, laser sensors on roads and streetlights can be used to improve visibility and appropriately direct the traffic.

              

Fig2.  Prototype: (1) Virtual Speed Breakers and (2) Road separators (Implemented using 3D Imaging/ AR Tech.)

Low-Cost Experiment

We can conduct a low-cost experiment to test these capabilities on a small stretch of road. Let’s establish this scenario inside a society which has an established but a troublesome road network, perhaps due to a sudden increase in the number of vehicles moved and parked inside that society. Such societies generally have a single narrow road directing traffic in both directions and have a common enter/exit gate. Vehicle pileups are frequent, especially during peak office hours. Appropriate laser signals (or LED lights) can be set up on the road to create a virtual barrier for traffic. They can be manually shifted on a half-hourly basis as and when traffic conditions change (66% width for outgoing traffic in morning office hours and 66% width for incoming traffic in the evening). The hypothesis we are trying to test is that the experiment will be able to comparatively ease the traffic conditions inside the society during peak hours. The impact (average speed of vehicles) can be measured and scenarios can be incrementally altered to improve the impact metrics till an optimum scenario is achieved. A similar experiment can be done for virtual speed breakers to regulate vehicle speed with the society. The cost of such an experiment would primarily include the cost of the LED lights for dynamic barriers, AR/ 3D Lighting setup for speed breakers and wages of the workers who are monitoring the experiment.