CHENNAI: Traffic policemen, no doubt, face the strenuous task of regulating traffic everyday, especially with the changing weather patterns in Chennai. With a phenomenal rise in the number of vehicles queuing up at the signals, traffic cops have been left with no choice but to shift the signal switching process from the automatic mode to the manual mode. For people, who use the roads around noon, a traffic cop standing either in the middle or in a corner of the road operating signal switches has become quite a common sight. According to the cops’ claims, the traffic signals have a systematic programming that can provide different sequences at different times of the day. For example, there’s a higher chance of getting a green light quickly during non-peak hours or depending on the flow of traffic any time of the day. But with the ‘peak hour traffic’ stretching into ‘peak period traffic’, policemen claim that they have no choice but to manually operate traffic signals even at important junctions. “Now, it is no more peak hour traffic for us. It has become peak period and it starts at 8 in the morning till 12 noon and similarly 4 or 4.30 in the evening and goes on till 9 pm,” says Sanjay Arora, Additional Commissioner of Police, Greater Chennai Traffic police.Moreover, the ratio in terms of the traffic volume is more than the capacity of the road, traffic police claim, adding that the traffic is twice the capacity of the roads. And that is one of the reasons why cops resort to manual operation of traffic signals to clear the roads. “There are several incidents that can happen on the roads. Imagine what would happen if a bus breaks down at a junction. There would be a traffic pile up for about two kilometres by the time the bus is cleared from the road. Such events occur at least twice a day. These things force us to opt for operating signals manually. There is no particular junction where we operate manually. We have 270 traffic signals in the city and anywhere we find more traffic, we opt for it,” said the Addl CoP.Though it might be the duty of the traffic police to clear the huge pile up at signals, it comes at the expense of their health. “We face a lot of physical hardships when we stand in a place for hours together. Also, the dust and noise pollution adds to our health issues. Our ears and lungs get affected. More than the rains, it is the summer that takes a toll on us,” says a traffic constable. There are also places, where they have had to switch off automatic signals to clear traffic with manual traffic signs, the constable adds. A section of motorists though find the manual operation of signals a better option. Some even claim that it only leaves them waiting for a longer period of time. “When they release traffic from one side in a junction for a longer period of time, the other side gets piled up and we have to wait for a longer time than usual,” says Ravi, a motorist from Egmore.Is there a solution to this? ‘There is,’ says Addl CoP Sanjay Arora, “Only way is to use more technology.” Though the introduction of the intelligent traffic signals in junctions, which can sense traffic in a signal and operate the traffic lights accordingly, have become ineffective due to the heavy flow of traffic on all sides of a junction, police say a central place that can monitor and operate traffic signals accordingly will help a great deal.
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