Arsalan Munir
Impatience and hustle and bustle are the recognisances or the symbols of 21st century for which ‘Social Animals’ are cursed. Mankind has to have different kind of ‘fitness certificates’ of impoliteness, impatience etc to survive in the present century.
Some people are of the opinion that the advancement and increasing interference of technology in personal lives of individuals, is the culprit. This is one side of picture, but on the other side ‘technology’ infinite number of times had proved, is proving and will be proved fruitful for the Homo sapiens.
With the help and further improvement in technology in any field of life, some of the above written distinctions can be caged in. But there are many adverse effects of technology on human life and where it’s applied or implemented incorrectly without the sufficient education, it’s always the mankind who has to rot e g why there are many traffic problems in the third world. The answer is quite simple that the developed countries have deployed technology with education to maintain check and balance.
To be more specific, traffic negligence and reckless driving etc are the qualities of Pakistan traffic system. It has now become somewhat a ‘tradition’ not to follow traffic rules, majority of times people don’t even bother to give clean passage to the emergency services vehicles such as ambulance and fire brigade etc. Sometimes people don’t have any clue or idea how in a situation in which ambulance vehicle is on their side and sadly the traffic of the opposite side is moving and absence of traffic warden on this situation just worsens the situation.
Sometimes traffic wardens also become helpless in providing passage to rapid response services. To cope with above written situation, and to create clean and fast passage for emergency services vehicles, the idea is to create and launch a device called “Automatic Warden”. The core function of this device will be controlling traffic signals, and this particular device will be activated automatically as soon as sirens of emergency services vehicles are heard from a certain distance. Further details on the working, components and design are discussed below.
DISSCUSSION:
The basic idea behind creating such a product is to save the lives of thousands of people that die every year because of poor traffic controls in place. In large metropolitan cities of Pakistan like Karachi, Lahore, Multan etc the flow of the traffic on roads is increasing with the passage of every single day, and so are traffic problems.
To control the traffic in the hour of need and to work properly and efficiently, the ‘Automated Warden’ will consist of the following components and parts and of the following specifications.
Components:
Sound Sensor: This sensor will sense the sound of the sirens of the emergency service vehicles.
Dedicated Camera: With the help of sound sensor, the dedicated camera will ensure the exact direction from which emergency vehicle is reaching the traffic signal.
Sound transmitter and receiver: This will function as an intermediary between traffic signals placed at two different crossroads and distance between two crossroads is between 300 meters -500 meters.
Functionality:
This device will function just like as an on/off button for light bulb but in a different way. In the case of this device, sound of the sirens of emergency services will put the device on the working mode rather than the physical force required lighting a bulb.
As this device is integrated in main circuit of a traffic signal, it will take control of a traffic signals, and from a distance of 500 meters away from a traffic signal, the sensor will ‘sniff out’ the sound of the emergency service vehicle and camera will detect the exact direction and distance of emergency service vehicle, and this device will also control the other 2 or 3 signals placed on that particular junction to smoothen the flow.
When the ambulance or fire brigade vehicle is only 100 meters away, the particular vehicle will have a clear and fast passage. This device will be placed at all the signals of a particular intersection point. As soon as the emergency service vehicle crosses the particular signal at intersection point, the automated warden will switch to off mode automatically. In different situations, the device will work differently.
CONCLUSION:
This device can readily become handy, as the traffic problems are getting worse day by day.
First of all, it will help the wardens to control the traffic in better way ie the camera attached with the device can also work independently without the siren (in the future, with more technology) to detect the overspending of vehicles and the vehicles breaking the traffic laws.
Secondly, the government can also control the ghost ambulances involved in illegal activities with the help of this device as every new ambulance service has to register itself with health department.