Indian, Japanese researchers work on solving traffic woes using emerging tech

HYDERABAD: The Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, (IIT-H) said the fifth joint coordination committee’s (JCC) meeting of the India-Japan joint research programme was held virtually on Thursday to deliberate on solving some of the pressing traffic woes by leveraging emerging technologies.
The joint research programme aims to build a system that effectively utilizes mobile devices, traffic sensing, big-data analysis and network technology to grasp traffic problems in a city.
In the fifth JCC meeting, Indian and Japanese researchers discussed progress of the joint research for the traffic monitoring and traffic flow analysis by utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The traffic monitoring system as part of this research has been implemented in Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, where the project team installed traffic monitoring cameras at several junctions and main roads.
They will take up project analysis to generate a hand-book for low carbon urban transportation that would be beneficial and suitable for the urban transportation system in India.
During the meeting, Indian and Japanese participants also agreed to extend the project for six months up to September 2022, with an eye on further enhancing research collaboration since some of the field research could not be conducted due to Covid-19 situation.
The Indo-Japan joint research project has been designed collaboratively by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as a scheme of ‘Science Technology Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS)’ and the project is being jointly executed by IIT-H, Nagoya Electric works Co Ltd, Nihon University and Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Commenting on the development, Matsumoto Katsuo, chief representative, JICA India said, “This joint research program is also one of the important opportunities for enhancing the partnership between IIT-H and Japanese academia and industries. It is hoped that research teams of India and Japan will continue to work collaboratively to create a reliable approach for grasping the traffic situation in the cities in India, which would contribute to the formation of a suitable and sustainable urban transportation system, and facilitation of a modal shift.”