Zero-Sum ITS Solutions India, a subsidiary of the Japanese company Zero-Sum Ltd, will be launching its ITS technology on two key corridors in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, with both routes being converted into the first smart roads in the city.
Due to go live on October 1, Zero-Sum’s ITS has been deployed on Ashram Road in the city’s business district, and Riverfront Road in the Riverside development area. The ITS is being implemented with the key goal of enabling road users to make journey decisions by providing them with real-time traffic information and, for the first time in India, providing them with ‘Recommended Route’ suggestions. This will provide drivers with live traffic information on their current route and all alternative routes, optimizing road occupancy and usage by routing vehicles to less congested stretches of road on their journeys.
The system gathers real-time traffic data through 18 camera-based traffic sensors, processes this information in real time over a cloud-based data control center, which analyses the traffic on the roads and creates alternate route recommendations. These are then disseminated to road users through seven full-color digital 23×10 feet (7x3m) variable messaging signs (VMS) that have been installed around 656ft (200m) before key junctions across both Riverfront and Ashram roads. This will provide road users with enough time to see and comprehend the recommended routes, and change course accordingly to reach their destination.
Zero-Sum was awarded ITS implementation contract by the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Ltd (SRFDCL), a company created as a special purpose vehicle of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Parent company Zero-Sum Japan has already implemented an ITS solution across the city’s 132 Feet Ring Road in 2014, which was well received by the AMC and general public, providing encouraging feedback for the two agencies to replicate the systems across the two new roads. Zero-Sum has further improved the ITS to include the simulated alternate route recommendations.
The project has been awarded to Zero-Sum under a 30-year PPP (public private partnership) contract, with responsibility for implementing the ITS on a build, maintain, operate and transfer basis. During the operation and maintenance period, the company has been granted the license to display commercial advertisements on 50% of the screen space on the VMS, with the revenue retained by Zero-Sum to offset their investment in the project.
