'One-Minute Traffic Plan': Stoplights at 10 bottlenecks to ease congestion in Shimla

Shimla: The Shimla Police has come up with a 'One Minute Traffic Light Plan' with a proposal to set up traffic lights at 10 bottlenecks to make the state capital jam-free and reduce the commute time by more than half.

The new system will reduce the time it takes to cross the city during peak hours from 60-90 minutes to 15-25 minutes, claims police.

Roads in Shimla often become choked with traffic during the peak tourist season that lasts from April 15 to June 15. The city is hardly any better navigable during the apple harvest season and winter tourist season.

According to the police data, about 9.92 lakh vehicles entered and exited Shimla in April alone this year.

According to the 'one minute traffic cycle' or 'one minute traffic light plan' based on time, number, and space, traffic would be released every minute in the ratio of 40:20 or 30:30 seconds which means vehicles would be halted for 40 seconds and released for 20 seconds every minute during rush, and released and halted for 30 seconds during normal times.

The halting distance will no more than 500 metres at any point.

The idea is to reduce traffic congestion at 16 major bottlenecks in the city which leads to long duration jams when the tourist season peaks.

A proposal to set up traffic lights has been sent to the transport department, SP Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi told the PTI on Friday.

The traffic lights are slated to come up at Tara Devi near Shoghi, Heeranagar, Chhabra, St Bede's College, IGMC on Sanjauli-Lakkar Bazaar stretch, between Fagli and Khalani on Shimla- Malyana Bypass, and Willows Bank on Vidhan Sabha-Advanced Studies road.

Three other places where these lights will come up have been kept reserved in view of tourist and apple season.

The SP said the authorities over the last two months carried out a trial of all bottlenecks with vehicular inflow and outflow and experimented with halting vehicles for 5-10 minutes at all three entry points.

Their analysis of traffic flow at Victory Tunnel in the heart of the city revealed that during rush hour, over 50 vehicles come to the tunnel from three sides in a minute, while only about 20 are able to cross it at the same time.

These additional 30 vehicles lead to traffic congestion, Gandhi said.

He said that vehicles entering from Shoghi (coming from Chandigarh), Chhabra (entering from upper Shimla/Kinnaur) and Heeranagar (coming from Mandi, Kangra, and Hamirpur districts) would be halted for 5-10 minutes depending on the traffic flow at entry points.

Police with the plan aims to make the city jam-free, give uninterrupted access to hospitals and emergency services, decrease the time of commuting, prioritise commute time of school children in the morning and afternoon and ease workers' rush during 9-11 am and 5-7 pm.

A Master Control Room has been set up to monitor traffic flow and issue directions to ease the traffic. A special training is also being given to traffic Police to tune in to the new system.

A smooth traffic in the city also stands to bring down vehicular pollution and increase fuel efficiency.

"Earlier we used to spend extra money on fuel in town and with regulation of traffic that money would be saved," said Preetam, a taxi owner.

Another man, a bus driver, said it used to take him between one and one and a half hours to reach the bus stand from the suburbs till May last year, but that time is now reduced to 30 minutes.