Pelican crossing comes to city

Hyderabadis have in the past given subways a thumbs down. Now the civic body is planning to implement pelican crossing system in the city. Hyderabad Hans takes a look

The first pelican crossing in the city will be at Care Hospital, Road No 1, Banjara Hills, it is said that it will be functional within the next week

TSS Siddharth

The idea for pelican crossing was pitched in a meeting held on April 16, 2012 by Vaada an NGO. This meeting was attended by officials from GHMC, APSRTC, HTP, ASCI and HMDA. In this meeting it was confirmed that the concept of pelican crossings on a pilot project basis can only be implemented in the HTRIMS (Hyderabad Traffic Integrated Management System) project in 2013. Currently, this project is being implemented on a pilot basis; the civic body has identified two 13 kilometre stretches where the pelican crossing system would be implemented. Begumpet- Greenlands hotel stretch and the other is the Mehdipatnam- Hitec City stretch.

Recently, the traffic authorities came up with a project HTRIMS. As part of the project they are also implementing the use of pelican crossings in all the 224 junctions that they have identified. Suresh Raju, founder, Vaada, says, “This move was a very important as it takes into consideration both pedestrian and vehicular traffic on the streets. Initially when we had pitched the idea to the authorities, we were told that it would be included in the HTRIMS project. This project will be implemented in 224 junctions across the city.”

A similar project was implemented in Bengaluru and Delhi but it did not function to the desired extent. Suresh Raju says, “In those cities the pelican crossings were manually operated and people started misusing it. It was impractical.”

According to Suresh, Hyderabad will have an automated system, with cameras perched atop the signals. That would keep track of the pedestrians and calculate the number of vehicles in the junction, once the system gauges that it is safe for the pedestrian to cross the road using a zebra crossing it will automatically halt the traffic for a matter of 10-15 seconds. “Since there is no manual work required in this process, the scope of vandalising or misusing the pelican system is minimised.”

The project is to be developed and executed by Bharat Electric Limited, Bengaluru. A feasibility study of this project is being done by students of IIT Delhi. The first pelican crossing in the city will be at Care Hospital, Road No 1, Banjara Hills. It is said that it will be functional within the next week.

There are differences on the timing given to people to cross the road. For an elderly citizen or a handicapped citizen it will become difficult to cross the streets in the stipulated time frame. Suresh Raju clarifies by saying, “The computer gauges the traffic and the person so it will take into consideration the time required by an elderly citizen or a handicap to cross the roads and reach the other side safely.”