Transcript
2011
Sabka Traffic – White Paper #2
© Sabka Traffic® Team Sabka Traffic® 11/21/2011
Sabka Traffic – White Paper #2
2011
Currently, due to lack of adequate response time of emergency vehicles infrastructure there exists a massive such as ambulances resulting in traffic congestion problem in most unnecessary loss of human life. major cities in India. The Indian According to Forbes “India has about 1% government is actively trying to add of the world's cars yet still manages to new roads and highways to address this kill over 100,000 people in traffic problem; however, they have not been accidents each year. This amounts to able to keep pace with the rapid rise in 10% of the entire world's traffic the number of motor vehicles in India. fatalities”. Finally, at the Primary causes mentioned for this environmental level traffic congestions include rapid add to the existing development in the last problem of excessive A nation’s economic decade, urbanization, and pollution in India. growth is usually the swift rise of the Any society is typically Indian middle-class. accomplished by a composed of intertwined Traffic congestion not and intricate mechanisms simultaneous only results in the loss of which manifest as culture adjustment in its human productivity and and institutions. A fuel (according to a major nation’s economic growth culture and Indian newspaper, traffic is usually accomplished by adaptation of its congestion costs the city a simultaneous of Delhi ~ 12 crores/day adjustment in its culture institutional in lost human productivity and adaptation of its infrastructure to and wasted fuel), but also institutional induces other infrastructure to promote promote and sustain inefficiencies into the and sustain that growth that growth system. These include trajectory. In today’s increased cost of doing global economy, trajectory. business due to rising competition exists at transportation costs, every level of our interruption in crucial supplies, and existence; from individuals competing delays in the resolution of traffic in school and work, to corporations related cases (DUI, traffic violations). trying to better each other in terms of At the individual level, it leads to profitability, to nations competing with excessive stress/tension which results one another for economic growth. In in health problems, and raises this regard, over the last decade India maintenance costs of vehicles due to has become a major player at the excessive wear and tear. At a social global level. This growth has been level, traffic congestions reduce the driven by the development of key
© Sabka Traffic®
Page 1
Sabka Traffic – White Paper #2
2011
Indian institutions such as banks and only where they satisfy an immediate the thriving equity market. As India need but also towards projects that lay moves forward, the growth of the solid foundations on which India can nation is intricately tied to the ability build its future. of the internal infrastructure to keep An essential component of doing pace with the level of economic business in any country is an adequate development. Foreign direct transportation system and investment (henceforth, FDI) forms a infrastructure. Over the recent years big component of India’s economic the traffic congestion problem has growth. There are several benefits of reached new levels in India. Everyday FDI to host country including capital, millions of people deal with traffic skill and technology transfer, market congestions across the Indian access and export promotion. However, subcontinent leading to a research shows that long gridlock on major roads in term effects of FDI on Traffic congestion key Indian cities. While economic growth depends the Indian government is costs a major city in on current conditions in tackling this issue by the host country. In order India about 12 aggressively expanding to continue receiving the current roads and Crores a day in benefits of FDI, the host constructing new ones, country needs to maintain losses due to the development has not a certain level of kept pace with the downtime in human education/infrastructure increasing number of new in order to capture the productivity and vehicles entering the potential benefits of FDI system every day. Part of wasted fuel! inflows. To be classified the problem is of course as a global power, it is the high cost to the important to maintain government and tax-payer to undertake perceptions in the mind of the global the huge level of infrastructural players. For example, if Bangalore’s development required. This initiative “Electronic City” is to maintain the marks the standard approach taken by perception of being equivalent to the most governments when faced with a Silicon Valley in the United States, then similar situation, i.e. the policy of visiting foreign dignitaries and CEOs building ones way out of the problem; shouldn’t leave witnessing the chaos on however, the cost of such an initiative the main access road leading into the can run into thousands of Crores. At the Electronic City. As an emerging macro level, another solution is to economy, India needs to build its develop adequate mass transit systems future on solid foundations. This in major cities. Such transit systems process entails directing resources not
© Sabka Traffic®
Page 2
Sabka Traffic – White Paper #2
such as subways and ground transportation in terms of busses and trams can potentially reduce congestion. However, the level of consumer adoption of these systems plays an integral role in their economic feasibility and their ability to address the traffic congestion problem.
2011
Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) Real-time traffic management through the use of video cameras Traffic is redirected manually via a central command center Plans are on to develop an Intelligent Transportation System (high cost) which would include:
As stated earlier, traffic congestion costs a major city in India about 12 Incident Monitoring System (IMS) crores Rupees a day in losses due to Variable Messaging System (VMS) downtime in human productive hours Electronic Toll System (ETS) and wasted fuel. The Indian Weight-in-Motion government subsidizes System (WMS) gasoline in India to the This entire Camera Based tune of 15%. Even if Enforcement Systems infrastructure would 1/10th of that (12 (CBES) Crores) is due to wasted also come at an Intelligent Public fuel, it implies that a Transportation systems extremely high price. major Indian city (IPTS) wastes almost 445 That can run into Crores of the tax During recent years, thousands of Crores and payer’s money per most traffic police year. In a country departments have years of labor. where millions go implemented programs hungry and thousands that leverage the power die of starvation each year the human of social media. For example, traffic and social cost of this problem is felt at police departments in major cities such the grass root level. In order to solve as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, etc. the traffic congestion problem, the currently use Facebook to alert the Indian government (both central and public about the traffic situation. This state) and the local Traffic Police in user driven system is also being used to major cities in India have report traffic violations. Although this proposed/implemented the following: system provides some indication of the Congestion charges in high traffic areas Carpooling incentives (gasoline vouchers) traffic situation, it needs to be complemented with other mediums such as mobile phones to improve the efficiency of the system and accuracy of the data. Parallel to this the Indian
© Sabka Traffic®
Page 3
Sabka Traffic – White Paper #2
government tried to implement a “mobile proxy” system in conjunction with a major service provider in India. This pilot study in the city of Bangalore required the construction of over eleven new towers and additional software developmental costs which ran to the tune of 131 Crores. This may potentially turn out to be an adequate system; however, it entails further infrastructural development costs and possibly take years to implement. While the above mentioned solutions have proven to be useful in addressing the problem of traffic congestion in other major cities in the world, as can be seen there are substantial costs associated with developing and implementing these solutions. One way to avoid the excessive costs and personnel requirements to adopt the above mentioned solutions is to leverage the other systems that are already in place in India. Sabka Technologies has developed the tool to leverage the power of social media (Twitter and Facebook) and mobile devices in order to address the traffic congestion situation in India. Currently there are about 3.4 Crore Facebook, 1.24 Crore Twitter, and over 55 Crore mobile phone users in India. Our technology provides the means to use the existing virtual and real world infrastructure in India to address the traffic congestion problem in the most cost effective manner. Our mobile applications available on almost every smart phone platform available in
2011
India, enables us to derive real-time traffic information from our users. This coupled with our ability to provide real-time updates via social media websites and SMS enables us to reach a substantial portion of the Indian population. Our technology not only creates a pseudo social environment that keeps the public aware and involved in the situation, but also establishes a platform where people help each other by relaying data and reporting incidents. Simply put, our technology enables the aggregation of multiple sources of information into a coherent, concise, and user friendly setting. Given the state of development of India, the Indian Government faces increasing demand for space (at least in the near future) that far exceeds the current road capacity. While the government has several options at its disposal to tackle the traffic congestion problem, most of these solutions tend to exhibit excessive time and monetary costs. In this regard, the people of India are have limited choices; either they can wait for the government to come through, stop commuting, or take charge and tackle the issue themselves. Sabka Technologies, can provide the people of India the necessary platform to build a system in which people can work collectively to circumvent and hopefully one day significantly reduce the occurrence of traffic congestions.
© Sabka Traffic®
Page 4