Decongesting roads the infotech way

Janardhan Prasad and Mukesh Jha -- both in their late twenties -- quit a fat-salaried job 10 years ago and ventured into a different kind of initiatives. The two are graduates from IIT Kanpur and are now helping the city traffic police decongest the city.


Taking the initiative: Janardhan Prasad (left) and Mukesh Jha make
a demonstration at the traffic branch office in the Police Commissionerate.

Janardan hailing from Kanpur and Mukesh from Patna, are developing a website which would give real-time updates about traffic diversions, blockages and congestion besides showing the shortest routes so that commuters can plan their journey in advance.

The project is being carried out under the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA), Pinnacle group and Tejraj promoters.

Praising their efforts, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Manoj Patil said, "The website will help in starting SMS and e-mail update services which would be helpful to the citizens."

Besides these services, regular updates on traffic issues can be shared on social networking sites such as twitter and facebook, Patil added.

"We wanted to do something for the city. So, we started thinking about decongesting the city. The concept of a website was finalised after discussing with DCP Patil," Janardan said.

"In the coming years technology will be upgrading at a pace we have never thought of before. GPRS and 3G services will be widely used by the common man, which would certainly increase the use of websites for getting real-time updates."

DCP Patil said: "The website development project is a public industry-police partnership project. We are appealing to students and professionals to submit designs for the website. The best web design would be rewarded suitably by the MCCIA and traffic branch.

The maps used for the website are from Google. The traffic branch has contacted officials from Google and are expecting further value-added services."