THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The trial run of the cameras for the country’s first vehicle-actuated traffic signal began the other day at Vellayambalam Junction. Five cameras imported from Belgium have been installed at the Junction. Experts are now studying the working of vehicle-actuated Wireless Traffic Signal Controller (Wi-TraC) during the peak hours.A group of experts, including the architect of the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) N S Sreenivasan and senior officials of Keltron and Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB), held meetings to review the working of Wi-Trac the other day.The commissioning of Wi-TraC was originally planned on April 15. However, the officials felt that it would take some time to get the system fully functional. "Since it is the first of its kind in the country, we have to take a lot of care. It is on a trial and error method now. A lot of learning is required for its installation. Once fully functional, you can control it using a laptop at a different location,” said P Madhava Pillai, project engineer of KRFB.KRFB is installing the traffic signal at Vellayambalam with technical support from Keltron and C-DAC.The trial of Wi-Trac system began last month. However, the cameras were installed only last week. The importance of Wi-Trac is that the camera in the system can detect vehicles and the intelligent transport system will change signals accordingly. Four cameras have been installed on each arm of the Junction, and the fifth one in the centre.Wi-TraC is a government-supported research project of C-DAC. The project has the backing of Keltron. Wi-TraC has many advantages over conventional traffic controllers in terms of functional features, energy efficiency and size. Since it is small and pole-mountable, it does not occupy any space on the pavement. It is a cost-effective solution since it won’t require digging, Hume pipes and armoured cables. It has a GPS-enabled Real-time Clock (RTC) for distributed time-synchronisation. Also, the entire system works on solar power.
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