New National Highways across India to boast Advanced Traffic Management System! In a bid to improve road safety in India as well as to reduce fatal road accidents on national highways, all new road projects developed under the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) will have an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS). The announcement was made by a member of NHAI on Tuesday, according to a PTI report. While addressing a virtual event organized by International Road Federation (IRF), R K Pandey, NHAI Member, Projects, said in order to remove black spots on national highways across the country, corrective measures have been taken.
According to the report, the Advanced Traffic Management System will include immediate identification of the location of areas where traffic bottlenecks occur because of accidents or other reasons as well as immediate provision of information to motorists on that stretch. At present, as many as 4,500 black spots have been identified on the national highways and 2,500 black spots have been rectified, Pandey said. According to the NHAI Member, the road safety audits are being conducted at various stages of road construction including at end of the project. Also, for the existing roads, steps have been taken by NHAI to remove the black spots, Pandey further added. When it comes to global fatal road accidents, India accounts for over 10 per cent of the accidents, making it the highest in the world, as per International Road Federation (IRF).
Last month it was reported that the NHAI is planning to award projects worth around Rs 2.25 lakh crore in the current financial year. In 2020-21, the highway authority awarded as many as 141 projects (4,788 km) worth an amount of Rs 1.71 lakh crore. Last fiscal, the share of engineering procurement and construction (EPC) in the awards was 50 per cent, which was followed by hybrid annuity model (HAM) at 49 per cent. While just two road projects were awarded through the build, operate and transfer (BOT) model.
