Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Traffic Police are implementing a slew of new measures to improve the city’s traffic flow with a prime focus on regulating traffic during late nights and morning, pedestrian safety and alternate routes, said deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Traffic-I, Rahul Hegde BK.
Speaking to NewsMeter, Rahul Hegde said that Hyderabad has one of the best traffic management systems in the country with the deployment of advanced technologies to streamline the traffic flow in the city.
Traffic in the city peaks at 10 am and 7 pm
A study by a Netherland-based company, Arcadis, on the peak and non-peak hours in the city revealed that nowadays traffic is heavy until midnight and in the early hours at the seven major congestion points and 18 congested corridors in the Commissionerate limits, he said.
“Traffic congestion is very high, with two main peaks occurring at 10 am and 7 pm as the office goers travel to and from the IT capital Cyberabad between Monday and Friday, while the people of Hyderabad prefer to stay away from the roads on Saturday. On this particular day, traffic congestion peaks an hour later at approximately 11 am and keeps getting worse until midday. In certain places, the traffic peaks after 8 pm and even beyond 10 pm in the evening,” the DCP said.
Seven key congestion hotspots
Elaborating further, he said that they have identified seven key congestion hotspots that include KBR National Park, Charminar, Chaderghat, SP Road near Begumpet, MJ Market– Nampally T-junction, Masab Tank–Virinchi Hospital and Mehdipatnam– Nanal Nagar routes.
Informing the measures being taken to address the issue, the DCP said that among the immediate steps, the Hyderabad police are taking to address the traffic congestion are adding reversible (or additional) lanes for congested areas, optimising the traffic signal cycle, synchronising signals at adjacent junctions, improving the junction and footpath and marking roads in coordination with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
“We also have zero tolerance for carriage obstruction and illegal parking,” he added.
Operation Rope for road encroachments
Asked about the Operation Rope initiative launched recently on road encroachments, Rahul Hegde said that on several roads shopkeepers are renting out footpath spaces in front of their establishments in a mafia-like scheme. They even oppose us and ask us how they would live when we attempt to eradicate these encroachments, he said.
“Until there are notable changes, Operation Rope will go on. This effort will continue every day, involving the use of cranes, the removal of automobiles from highways, and the removal of obstacles. We all need to cooperate to make things better. We can solve the escalating traffic issues with the help of the public,” the DCP said.
Referring to the building alternative routes, Rahul Hegde said that to ease traffic congestion on the major stretches, vehicular movement was also being diverted to the alternative routes developed in the city that include Chinthal Basti to Shadan College to avoid Masab Tank and Nirman Junction, Road No-14, Banjara Hills to Road No-7 near Iran Consulate to avoid NCL Junction, Sri Nagar Colony Junction, Sagar Society, NTR Bhavan and connected near KBR Park Junction.
“On several occasions, we have also sent an email to Google Maps to suggest alternative routes to the motorists to reduce the traffic burden on major stretches,” he said.
