French co to help TSRTC for smart transport

An agreement is signed between TSRTC and Lumiplan ITS India Pvt. Ltd for the use of innovative technologies for better public transport in Hyderabad

​Hyderabad: The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) has entered into an agreement with a French firm for the implementation of Smart Transport System in the corporation.

Speaking to media persons on Wednesday, Transport Minister P Mahender Reddy said that M/S Lumiplan ITS India Pvt. Ltd. had submitted a proposal for ‘Proof of Concept implementation of Smart Transport Systems’ in TSRTC, under the Indo-French protocol called FASEP (for supporting Indo-French collaborations in the field of sustainable development) to study, develop, implement and evaluate different IT solutions with no financial commitment and no direct cost to TSRTC.

He said that the French government had agreed to spend Rs 20 crore on the project.
According to the RTC officials, the French government will support the technical collaboration and reimburse to French firms the costs of expertise, travels and material brought from France under the FASEP protocol. The French firms will invest in terms of providing temporary license, customisation, cloud infrastructure and business development/communication in India.

The objective of the proof of concept project is to study and demonstrate on field, the usage of innovative technologies for better public transport in Hyderabad. GPS tracking and advanced onboard electronic equipment would be used for having a real time basis status of RTC buses.

The information would be used for different purposes including informing the passengers on a real time basis, monitoring and correcting the operations by TSRTC, consolidating statistics for further optimisation and better planning. The passengers will be informed through solar LED display boards, multimodal smart phone app and multimedia screens at the bus stations/shelters.

Under the pilot project, all necessary infrastructure at the depots and central locations would be provided, installed and maintained by the French companies, a team of five people from traffic department including a project manager would be provided by the TSRTC along with systems, internet facility and transport facilities to visit the sites (depots, bus stations etc) and minimum facilities (office space, internet connection, access to depots, vehicles etc) will be provided to the team.

The officials said there would be no commitment or any kind of liability from the TSRTC for further involvement or cost and in case the pilot project was not satisfactory, the entire installed infrastructure could be removed by the French companies.

If the results were satisfactory, the equipments would be transferred to RTC at no cost. In case of success, the French companies would provide experts in order to design the products for full implementation in the corporation, they added.

The equipments would be fixed on about 40 vehicles on route numbers 115 (Koti- Uppal), 115BV, 115C, 115ZP, 113K/L and 113 M/W.