Bye street light: Now, a road in Netherlands that glows in dark
April 16, 2014
NEW WAY TO SAVE ENERGY
London: A first glow-in-the-dark ‘smart highway’ spanning 500 metres has been developed to replace street lights in the Netherlands. It is the first time “glowing lines” technology has been piloted on the road and can be seen on the N329 in Oss, approximately 100km south east of Amsterdam.
Designer and innovator Daan Roosegaarde teamed up with Dutch civil engineering firm Heijmans to developed the technology. The glow-in-the-dark markings are made of paint that contains “photo-luminising” powder which charges up in the daytime and slowly releases a green glow at night, ‘BBC News’ reported.
Once the paint has absorbed daylight it can glow for up to eight hours in the dark, doing away with the need for street lights. The innovative technology will be officially launched later this month and if successful could trigger a mass switch-off of lighting across the country’s road network, potentially saving the nation millions of Euros.
Heijmans said that the glow in the dark technology is “a sustainable alternative to places where no conventional lighting is present”.
Roosegaarde’s past projects have included a dance floor with built-in discolights powered by dancers’ foot movements, and a dress that becomes see-through when the wearer is aroused. In the UK, engineers have developed water-resistant, spray-on coating that makes roads glow in the dark by absorbing UV light during the day and releasing it at night. The coating can adapt to the lighting conditions in its surroundings to glow accordingly. AGENCIES
HC tells NCR board to identify violations of land allotment rules
April 16, 2014
Hindustan Times (Delhi) |Vinod Rajput
NOIDA: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) to prepare a list of violations committed by the Centre as well as the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi in the allotment of land to various realtors for development.
As per the petitioner, NCR is facing issues such as traffic congestion and water crisis due to violations of NCRPB Act.The order came in response to a petition filed by a Noida resident, seeking restriction on the acquisition of farm land for urbanisation schemes in Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gurgaon and other parts of the region. The plea has also accused the states’ development authorities of conniving with the Centre for earning commission and causing damage to the ecology and existing civic infrastructure.“The court has observed that all four states have violated the NCRPB Act while acquiring fertile plots and allotting them to realtors. So, it has questioned the board on the legal action it has taken against the violators. The NCRPB has to furnish the list of violators before July 15, the next date of hearing,” said Pramod Chaudhary, advocate of petitioner Raghuraj Singh.
As per the petitioner, the NCRPB has been sheltering the four states that have been unscrupulously acquiring fertile land and allotting them to realtors by tweaking or violating land use policies. And because of these violations, home buyers suffer a lot.
“In NCR, the land use control lies with NCRPB. But state governments have formed a nexus with the Centre to allot farmers’ land to realtors in Delhi’s adjoining cities — Noida, Greater Noida and Gurgaon among others, where land prices have shot up to a new high,” said Chaudhary.
The NCR is facing issues such as traffic congestion, water crisis, densely populated dingy localities, poor garbage mechanism and unauthorised colonies due to violations of the NCRPB Act 1985, the petitioner said, adding that the governments indulged in developing organised slums with no economic activity to offer employment opportunities for the youth.
“As per the NCRPB Act, states were supposed to build low-density economically and ecologically sustainable towns at a distance from Delhi to check unauthorised development. But officials and politicians nexus failed a well intentioned law,” Chaudhary said.
Officials of the NCRPB said that the petitioner has misinterpreted the Act.
Project to install high-speed traffic cameras fails to take off
April 16, 2014
Hindustan Times (Delhi)
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Traffic Police had mooted a grand plan of installing speed cameras at the city’s busy intersections to nab motorists flouting rules as well as bringing down the number of fatal accidents on the roads.
SONU MEHTA / HT -Delhi traffic police want to set up 8 high-speed cameras in two accident prone zones to track and nab offenders.Three years on, however, the plan continues to remain on paper with the traffic police force once again missing the March deadline for implementation of the project.
Sources said in 2012 that the traffic police had come up with a plan to install 70 infrared-based speed cameras at the busy city intersections in order to identify and nab speeding motorists.
The plan, however, was later scrapped as the ministry of home affairs did not approve it.
Later, due to a ‘funds crunch’, the traffic police had scaled down their demand and come up with a fresh plan to instead eight such high-speed cameras and install them at the city’s two accident-prone zones at Kingsway Camp and Aurobindo Marg by March 2014.
However, the ` 2.25 crore project again got stuck during its technical evaluation phase.
“We had plans to install the cameras by the last financial year but the tender process got stuck during the technical evaluation. The whole process of finalising the bidder may take a few more months,” stated Taj Hassan, special commissioner of police (traffic).
Sources however, claimed that the project this time too failed to take off again due to non-allocation of funds by the ministry.
“With the fund allocated to us, we could only purchase 78 breath analysers in the last financial year,” said a senior traffic police officer.
In 2013, more than 1,700 people were killed in road accidents. During an analysis, traffic police found out that many of them were killed due to speeding. This year also, over 400 people were killed on the roads of the city during the first three months.
The cops also had plans to buy 10 Innova cars mounted with automatic speed violation detection system, which would intercept vehicles speeding beyond permissible limits, both during day and night and in all kinds of weather conditions.
This project too is yet to be cleared.
Source -http://paper.hindustantimes.com/
Roads of trouble
April 7, 2014
RAHUL PRITHIANI
Road developers are in a tizzy as both debt-servicing ability and returns of national highway projects have come under severe strain as the economics has gone haywire because of low traffic, execution delays and cost overruns.
Over the past couple of years, traffic growth on national highways has slid precipitously, in conjunction with the economy and industrial production. An analysis of traffic growth across 15 national highway projects that have been operational for over three years revealed that overall traffic growth, estimated at 7-8 per cent between fiscals 2008 and 2011, slumped to 3-4 per cent in 2012 and to 2-3 per cent in 2013. In fiscal 2014 too, the traffic growth has been weak due to sluggish economic activity.
The culprit was commercial vehicle traffic, whose slowdown overshadowed a healthy 15 per cent average growth in passenger vehicle traffic during this period.
Special purpose vehicles
This deteriorating trend is also mirrored in the revenues of a dozen special purpose vehicles (SPVs) operating under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model. Revenues of these SPVs have grown by about 12 per cent in the past couple of years. During this period, toll rates rose by 8-9 per cent per annul as these are linked to the wholesale price . But poor traffic growth negated most of the benefits.
The scenario is unlikely to improve much in the near-term. Road traffic has high correlation with industrial growth . While we expect IIP to recover in fiscal 2015 to about 4 per cent from the decadal low of about 1 per cent it hit in fiscal 2014, it will remain well below the long-term average.
Consequently, commercial vehicle traffic growth will be lacklustere and overall traffic growth on national highways will languish at 3-5 per cent in fiscal 2015. As almost the entire operating costs in a road project are fixed in nature, any variation in the traffic, especially during initial years, has a significant bearing on the project returns.
Slow traffic growth on national highways is not the only problem plaguing developers. Base traffic (in the first year of a highway’s operation) has been much lower compared to the NHAI draft project report estimates. To be sure, developers would have done their own math on traffic, including expected leakages and exempt vehicles, before bidding, yet they will be concerned about how wide off the mark the original estimates were.
Compounding these problems for road developers are delays and the resultant cost overruns. Of the 78 BOT projects completed between fiscals 2000 and 2013, more than three-fourths or 61 projects faced delays, with the average time overrun at 10.5 months. The situation has only worsened in the last couple of years. Execution hasn’t begun for about 33 projects awarded in fiscal 2012 .
The double whammy of lesser-than-expected traffic and cost overruns has severely impaired the debt-repayment ability of developers. For five of these projects, the average debt-service coverage ratio during the first five years of operations is estimated to be less than one. This means equity infusion is essential to ensure timely servicing of debt, especially since tying up for additional debt will be difficult in the current scenario. Returns for these road projects are also expected to be 8-14 per cent, much lower than the 22-26 per cent returns based on NHAI traffic and cost estimates.
The above-mentioned scenario is representative of most road developers. Clearly, road developers are being buffeted by problems from all sides and have very limited room for manoeuvre. Recently, the government offered some respite by relaxing exit norms and allowing for premium deferment in the case of stressed projects. However, it might turn out to be a case of too little, too late.
The author is Director, Crisil Research, a division of Crisil
Source- http://www.thehindu.com/
Tolls get heavy
April 7, 2014
DEEPA H. RAMAKRISHNAN
If you are travelling to Bangalore or Tindivanam via Tambaram, you will now have to shell out more as toll rates on these roads have been hiked by 10 per cent from April 1.
Of the 40 toll plazas under the control of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in the State, the rates have been revised for 18. The rates will come into effect at the other plazas soon.
The hike has not been received very well by freight carriers, omni-bus owners and the general public. R. Sukumar, president, Tamil Nadu Lorry Owners Federation, termed the hike ‘unfair’.
“About 8 per cent of our operating costs go towards paying toll charges. Already, the prices for diesel, permits, tyre and insurance premiums have increased. Load carriers are unable to increase freight charges as it would only dissuade industries from moving goods,” he said.
Mr. Sukumar complained that though a portion of the toll charges was required to go towards maintenance of the roads, the NHAI was not spending much on maintenance. “Despite the fact that accidents keep happening and over 50 vulnerable spots have been identified all over the State, they don’t have ambulances or cranes as stipulated in the contracts with the companies collecting tolls,” he said.
As far as omni buses are concerned, each of the around 600 buses that ply in and out of the city will have to pay an additional Rs. 30 for every trip. M. Chandrasekaran of the Tamil Nadu Omni Bus Owners Association said that as ticket prices were increased only three months ago, there would not be another hike in the near future.
“There is a lot of competition in the market already. If we increase the prices further, more buses will run without passengers,” he said.
KPN Travels’ K. P. Natarajan said a consultation would be held amongst bus owners soon to decide the next course of action. “The industry as such increases bus ticket fares only when diesel prices increase. When that hike is effected, we will take into account recent toll fare revisions also,” he said.
Source -http://www.thehindu.com/
Wanted: A permanent eye on traffic
April 7, 2014
Nitasha Natu & Somit Sen,TNN
There is little doubt that the disorder that passes off as Mumbai’s traffic flow needs to be addressed urgently. The vehicular population has grown annually by an average of 8% and stood at 2 crore in March last year. From 15.2 lakh in 2012, traffic offences rose sharply to 20.5 lakh in 2013. And still, there are just 3,493 traffic police personnel to monitor the city’s 1,940-km network of roads.
Transportation experts assert that no number of fresh recruits will comprehensively regulate traffic in a city as large and disregarding of road laws as Mumbai. For that the authorities must embrace technology. Like in major metropolises around the world, there is a need here to install a grid of CCTV cameras that will automatically detect traffic violations, help penalize offenders and create a deterrent.
“The traffic police cannot watch every stretch of road. Manpower constraints make it even more imperative to put CCTVs to better use,” says Ashok Datar, chairman of the Mumbai Environment Social Network and a transportation expert. “Existing cameras need to be replaced with high-resolution ones.”
The traffic police incidentally agree. Joint commissioner (traffic) Dr B K Upadhyaya says a proposal for the procurement of superior enforcement cameras was sent to the Maharashtra government around seven months ago. The request is still pending.
If and when the new system is mounted, Upadhyaya says, “the pressure on the force will reduce. We will not have to deploy personnel at all junctions.” For a start, he adds, the cameras can be fitted at key junctions and the police provided updated RTO data on vehicle owners.
Datar says the advanced system will work not only as a rule enforcer but also as a deterrent . “People will realize they are being watched. The system particularly curbs offences of lane cutting, speeding, signal jumping , and halting on pedestrian signal.”
Such CCTV systems are common in British cities and elsewhere. A majority of them use the Automatic Number Plate Recognition software , in which the cameras take pictures of travelling vehicles and automatically detect traffic violations. The software then enhances the picture of the offending vehicle’s number plate and extracts the alphanumeric characters.
To be sure, Mumbai has a small web of traffic cameras but, by all accounts, it is obsolete. Zicom Electronic Security Systems, which set up the network in 2006, says the objective then was “surveillance, not catching offenders” . “No new cameras were added thereafter. The state tried to get 5,000 state-of-the-art cameras in a Rs 1,000 crore project. Tenders were floated. But the project got stuck,” says Pramoud Rao, managing director of the company. Datar blames the state government for not showing urgency in procuring the advanced CCTV system for Mumbai: “it lacks interest”.
Present in Mumbai
118 CCTV cameras are installed at strategic locations, mainly busy traffic junctions The cameras are normally used to track congestion, regulate traffic flow and to decide diversions during VIP/VVIP movement. Personnel from local traffic outposts are directed to the spots where snarl-ups are detected with the cameras The system is not sufficiently advanced to detect traffic offenders automatically with the CCTV footage. Besides, a few cameras are not even functioning
Needed in Mumbai
Two or three high-resolution enforcement cameras should be fitted at busy junctions to capture images from various angles Challans should be sent by email or snail mail to the traffic offenders spotted by the cameras. Online payment of fines should be encouraged If the fine remains unpaid, the offender should be summoned by the traffic police, or the challan should be forwarded to the court, which can send the summons
Digital surveillance will soon cover all key B’lore junctions
Bangalore has the most robust automated traffic enforcement system in the country. Called B-TRAC , it was conceptualised in 2006 and initiated with the introduction of Blackberry phones for traffic officers. Within a year, records on these phones were linked to the transport department’s database and manual issuance of challans was discontinued. Surveillance cameras were added to the equation later. Today, the city has 173 surveillance cameras, 5 static enforcement cameras and 500 portable digital cameras. “When a violation is found, our cameras zoom in on the number plate. The number is checked with the transport department’s database and a notice is issued with the photo of the violation,” says B Dayananda, additional commissioner of police (traffic). “We have finalised the tender for 105 more cameras. With this, all key junctions will be covered.” A 10ft by 72ft video wall for monitoring was recently installed at the traffic management centre. Last year, the police turned Bangaloreans too into traffic enforcers by launching a mobile app. “We call it Public Eye. If any citizen sees a violation, he can take a photo and, using the app, upload it to our server. If the evidence is found solid, the violator is booked,” says Dayananda.
— Arun Dev
Three lakh challans issued in Chandigarh with 19 cameras
Traffic police in Chandigarh are known for strict enforcement of road laws. To assist them, they have installed 19 CCTV cameras at the city’s busiest roads. In the last four years, more than 3 lakh traffic challans have been issued with this technology. The 19 cameras are linked to a control centre and their feed is monitored by an inspector. “So far, jaywalking was the commonest offence for which challans were issued. But now we are adopting new CCTV technology that will help detect violations such as signal jumping and speeding,” says SSP (traffic) Maneesh Chaudhary. The police also encourage citizens to upload photographs of traffic violations on their Facebook page; alongside it should be mentioned the place, date and time of the offence.
Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
State Highways to Come Under Camera Surveillance Soon
April 7, 2014
By Express News Service – KOCHI
After installing high power cameras in various National Highways in the state, the Motor Vehicle Department would now procure another 500 mini cameras to maintain surveillance on the State Highways. Police officials said that the tender for the mini cameras has been floated and it would be installed within a month’s period.
According to senior officials in the Motor Vehicle Department, the majority of surveillance cameras are fitted on the state’s National Highways. “The number of cameras in the State Highways were comparatively low and over speeding incidents were high here. There are several highways in the state, which are more wider than the National Highways. In these roads, there is a high intensity of traffic and many accidents reported. So we decided to install mini cameras which can detect the speed of the vehicle and facilitate carrying out enforcement activities as well,” a senior official said. Motor Vehicle Officials said that the newly inaugurated control room to monitor vehicles along the highway from Cherthala to Manjeshwaram has been a huge success. “More than 300 drivers are being booked daily using these cameras. With the installation of the new system, we can successfully control the speed of inter-state luxury buses plying in the night,” an official said.
Some of the night buses are found over-speeding at more than 90 kilometres. The installation of the cameras has made the drivers more wary. As a result, they don’t accelerate and drive cautiously on the NH. If the driver is caught for the first time, he is let off with a fine. If this becomes a regular occurrence, then stringent action including cancelling of the license would be taken.
A state-of-the-art control room to monitor vehicles along the highway from Cherthala to Manjeshwaram was inaugurated at Kakkanad a few weeks back. The control room monitors feed from 147 observation cameras set up along the highway.
At present 57 cameras have been set up for the purpose. Apart from the over-speeding and signal violation, the use of mobile phones and not wearing helmet are also liable for punishment. The cameras also help in booking riders and drivers carrying more people than the required capacity, violation of lane traffic, manipulated and unauthorised registration plates and dangerously loaded vehicles.
Source- http://www.newindianexpress.com/
Maharashtra govt agencies float tenders for Bandra Versova Sea Link project
April 7, 2014
Manthan K Mehta,TNN |
Another project which will help faster travel between Western and Eastern Suburbs is Rs 261 crore elevated corridor between EEH to BKC.
MMRDA official said, “It will cut down travel time be 30 minutes once this 2.5km long elevated corridor is ready in 36 months.”
MSRDC said passenger water transport on Eastern Coast will connect south Mumbai (Jamshedji Bunder) to Nerul via catamarans and hovercrafts.
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