The Hindu Business Line : NHAI to embark on huge data collection exercise

Road to everywhere
When completed, the software would help make available an online, a detailed map of the highways
Information can be had on wayside amenities, bridge location, environment related data and toll data.

New Delhi , Sept. 24

Aiming to develop a per kilometre basis navigational system for the highways, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to embark on a huge data collection exercise along the Golden Quadrilateral and North South East West stretches.

Data would be collected on various parameters such as traffic growth, road quality, location of wayside amenities, among others. The data would be fed into a software package with NHAI - the road information system. When completed, the software would help make available an online, detailed map of national highways with information such as wayside amenities, bridge location, environment related data, toll plaza location and toll data and construction contractor.

TRAFFIC GROWTH DATA

"This data would also help NHAI while taking up road widening exercise from four-lane to six-lanes in the future," Dr Satyanarayana Dash, Chairman, NHAI told Business Line. NHAI had undertaken traffic density studies while initially taking up the road widening projects. Now, when it plans to take up further widening, it plans to collect data on a slew of parameters including traffic flow data, road condition and quality and incidence of accidents.

"The idea is to have data based upon time-series so that for each road stretch, one can find out the traffic growth. This would help us find the traffic growth rate," he said.

APPLICATIONS

The data can have wide-ranging applications. "For example, if we find that there are frequent accidents at some points, we can identify presence of some blind spots and accordingly bring in changes to curb the accidents," Dr Dash explained. Moreover, the idea is to collect data on smaller units of one kilometre basis with the exact latitude and longitude so that later the data can be integrated with global positioning system (GPS).

While the exact plan on how to go about the data collection exercise is yet to be firmed up, NHAI would have to engage some external research agencies for the work.

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NHAI to embark on huge data collection exercise