Years on, Intelligent Traffic Management System awaits green signal in Srinagar

Srinagar, Nov 3: Inordinate delay in the functioning of smart traffic lights in the summer capital is taking a toll on commuters as this leads to massive traffic jams.

The commuters said that amid dilapidated roads and diversions, the defunct traffic lights are adding to their woes.

Despite the passing of years, the smart traffic lights, also called Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) are yet to be made fully functional in Srinagar. The project to upgrade the old traffic light system was started to provide state-of-the-art traffic management.

“We are already pestered with the bad roads and traffic diversions, and the issue of non-functional traffic lights is making the situation worse. At most of the junctions across Srinagar, traffic is not managed via traffic lights, rather there are traffic diversions put in place which makes the situation worse,” said Abdul Hamid, a commuter.

The aggrieved commuters said that as the project was started, the old functional traffic lights were replaced with smart lights. “At least the old traffic lights were providing some assistance in the traffic management. Since the new project was started to provide smart traffic lights, we have neither the old system nor the new system. This has really messed up with the traffic management, and at major junctions, traffic is managed manually,” said another commuter. An official said that the project is awaiting a maintenance contract and once that is completed, there will be a fully functional system.

“Concerned authorities are already working on the issue, and soon these technicalities will be cleared, and we will have a functional system,” said an official.

The commuters however said that this is a major issue related to traffic and it has been lingering for years now. They said once the old system was replaced by ITMS, they were promised modern and efficient system.

SSP Traffic Muzaffar Ahmad Shah said that the system will be fully functional soon, and the majority of traffic management will be carried out using the latest technology.

“We have the control room almost ready where we will monitor traffic. We are waiting for some technicalities to be cleared so that commuters will benefit from it,” Shah said.