Gurgaon: Six major roads in the city may soon get centrally controlled digital message boards and public announcement systems to alert commuters about traffic, diversions, weather and emergencies, with a direct line to police built in.GMDA is planning the system for six model roads selected for their traffic volume and importance: MG Road (IFFCO Chowk to Golf Course Road), Hamilton Court Road, Vyapar Kendra Road, Atul Kataria Chowk to Signature Tower, Rajeev Chowk to Bakhtawar Chowk (Medanta Road), and Hero Honda Chowk to Sector 29. GMDA expects the work to be completed four months after allocation of the Rs 7 crore project.The project will place 20 digital message displays and public-address systems at junctions along these stretches, along with 16 emergency call-point kiosks at selected locations. All facilities will be monitored from GMDA’s integrated command and control centre.A GMDA official said the system would let information reach road users directly, particularly when traffic arrangements need to change quickly. “The objective is to provide commuters with information at the location itself. If there is flooding or a breakdown on a particular road, the system can display an alert on the message board. Similarly, if traffic has to be diverted because of an incident, an announcement can be made at the junctions ahead of the affected location so that motorists can be diverted before they reach the spot. This will allow us to update road users in real time and manage traffic even when physical police presence is not immediately available at every location,” the official said.The boards will display information in both English and the local language, and will be built for visibility from a distance and for outdoor conditions, the official added.The public announcement system will allow GMDA to make announcements at a single location, across a zone, or at multiple locations at once. It is proposed for intersections, public places, markets and other locations identified in consultation with police.The emergency call points will let a person press a button to speak directly to the police control room or the city’s command centre; if the call goes unanswered, it will automatically divert to the nearest police station. The system will also be linked to CCTV feeds, letting officials view a location and respond to alerts — a feature expected to be useful at busy junctions where accidents or other emergencies need a quick response.“The announcement system can be used for both routine and emergency communication. Unlike maps available on phones, which largely estimate traffic conditions from location data collected from users travelling on the road, the proposed system will allow officials to directly monitor selected locations through CCTV and communicate alerts to motorists through message boards and public announcements,” the official explained.
