Electronic traffic boards to alert motorists by 2005

Electronic display boards showing road conditions, alerting motorists to congested routes and suggesting other options, will be set up by Dubai Municipality and become operational by 2005.

In what is being envisaged as a move towards smoother roads and better-informed motorists the civic body, in a first of its kind venture in the Middle East, is beginning work on "variable message signs."

Tenders for the Dh65.5-million project are being processed. The first round of construction in the phased implementation is expected to begin on July 8, and is expected to be completed on January 1, 2005, said a senior civic body official.

The project, to start on Sheikh Zayed Road, is expected to reduce by 15 per cent the number of traffic accidents in Dubai and slash motorist travel time by 1.4 million driving hours per year.

The project comprises 17 variable electronic signs in different areas in Dubai, and around 300 control boards, which control the speed and direct motorists to roads with less traffic.

The project will also include expansion work for the traffic control centre at the Dubai Municipality, in addition to cameras and speed sensors.

Eng. Maitha Mohammed bin Adai, Head of Traffic Engineering and Technologies Section, told Gulf News that the display boards will be erected on select locations on internal roads, intersections, interchanges, roundabouts and highways.

They will alert motorists about traffic congestion ahead and suggest alternate routes. The messages will be displayed in Arabic and English. "There will be no need to call the police if there is an accident because all roads will be wired with radar and speed control devices, accessible to both the municipality and Dubai Police.

"The central communication centre will have all the information to display traffic messages in time and also alert the police on time, giving minute details of location so that they can respond in the shortest possible time."

Incident management on the roads is expected to get much better, she said.

The new system will be environmentally superior, and the ensuing smoother flow of traffic will help the public transport system run on time. Ambulances will get to the scene of an accident quicker, so will civil defence services and police vehicles, she said.

Explaining the display boards, she said they will show road conditions, which routes are congested, which lanes might be used in such an event. An X will indicate blocked interchanges or intersections.

"We took into consideration which roads experience traffic congestion, and it is these roads that will get priority when the boards are being installed," she said.

Through this project, she added, the whole traffic movement in the emirate might be reorganised.

Dubai has met the challenge of increase in the city population by building an extensive road network. In 1980, Dubai had 275,000 inhabitants. But in 2005, it is expected to hit more than 1 million people, and in 2020, it will be more than 3.5 million.

That means, she explained, building new roads is not enough to reduce traffic congestion. But combined with modern technology, traffic snarls and accidents will be reduced.

This project will give traffic engineers at the municipality a better picture of flow and allow the technical unit to get minute-by-minute details of road usage.

Electronic sensors and cameras will be installed on the roads which capture traffic volume data and transfer it in seconds to the traffic control centre. Pictures of accidents will be transferred to the Geographic Information Systems-based electronic map, which will help traffic controllers analyse current information.

Engineers will be able to find solutions to the problem in cooperation with the police and reroute traffic by sending instructions to the variable electronic board. Traffic signals will also work in tandem with the electronic sign system. More information about its usage will be published on the Dubai Municipality's website.

"There are some interchanges that suffer from traffic congestion. Sometimes we add lanes to those interchanges and that increases the number of users. However, these signs will help improve traffic there."

She noted that the project relies on a survey done by the Intelligent Transport System, or ITS, a modern technique of traffic management.

Maitha said the ITS is being implemented in major cities to reduce traffic congestion and will help control traffic at Dubai's major highways to a certain extent.

We have already finalised a comprehensive study on the city's road network and traffic management system, last year, called R-700, which showed that the number of registered vehicles on the road could go up to one million by 2020 from 400,000 at present.

The survey covered Sheikh Zayed Road, Sheikh Rashid Road and Al Ittihad Road, Al Garhoud Bridge and approach routes, Al Maktoum Bridge and approach routes, Al Shindagha Tunnel and approach routes, and major arterial routes.

"The ITS provides real-time integrated traffic management and traveller information for freeways, expressways and arterial routes in Dubai as a means of reducing congestion and improving road safety," she concluded.