LAHORE - The Rs4 billion Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), a project to improve traffic management in the provincial capital, received first hitch from the Planning and Development Department (P&D) authorities as they refused to approve the plan over ‘heavy’ cost, TheNation learnt on Thursday.
The cost of the project in 2010 with installation of 200 traffic signals and other modern traffic system was estimated about Rs2 billion. However, in 2012, its budget was raised up to Rs4 billion, sources said.
Engineers were asked to start work on ITS on March 5 to improve traffic management along the first stretch of the new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System, from Gajju Mata to Kalma Chowk. The Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (TEPA) had made planning of the ITS.
Sources said that the P&D Chairman on Thursday chaired a meeting in which TEPA Director Mazhar Khan and LDA Director General Abdul Jabbar participated. The meeting held to get approval of the project by the Planning Dept.
“The Chairman expressed his anger on high cost of the project and refused to give approval of the ITS,” said the sources. “He clearly refused to give funds for the project from development funds,” added the sources.
The project completion period along BRT was set four months. According to further detail of the ITS project, which the Project Director told in the meeting, the road junctions would get high-tech traffic signals that, using sensors and cameras, can detect the level of traffic on each side and adjust accordingly. “The junctions will also get screens to inform motorists of traffic conditions ahead, and cameras that can detect traffic signal and speeding offences. As many as 14 surveillance cameras, 30 traffic cameras, 2 speed corridor violation cameras, 25 red light violation detection cameras and 25 red light detection video cameras would be installed along 13 junctions of the BRT,” it was informed.  The ITS is the project being introduced on Turkish pattern. The senior officers’ from the Punjab government, including Lahore DCO, LDA DG and TEPA Director, repeatedly, visited Turkey in the name of study and discuss the ITS with Turkish engineers.