Chennai: Commuters using the Chennai Bypass Road will soon get real-time traffic updates from toll plazas at Vanagaram (near Porur) and Surapattu (near Madhavaram) as they have been integrated into a national traffic monitoring portal.
The Indian Highways Management Company Limited (IHMCL), a subsidiary of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), has developed a GIS-based system to track congestion and waiting times at toll plazas. The system will first cover 100 toll plazas nationwide, including the two in Chennai, one in Krishnagiri and Pallikonda in Vellore, selected based on congestion reports from the 1033 National Highway helpline over the past five years.
The real-time monitoring tool will measure queue lengths in metres, track vehicle speeds, to calculate total waiting times. If congestion exceeds a predefined threshold, the system will issue alerts and recommend lane redistribution to improve traffic flow. For example, on festive weekends, traffic leaving Chennai surges, pushing wait times at Vanagaram toll plaza beyond 10-15 minutes. To ease congestion, seven to eight of the ten lanes can be allocated for outbound vehicles. The portal, accessible to the public, will allow commuters to check peak traffic hours and waiting times before planning their trips.
Live camera feeds at toll plazas will also provide real-time data on potential bottlenecks, allowing officials to take immediate action. The software will also assist NHAI field offices by offering comparative traffic data on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis, said a senior IHMCL official.
“This will help officials analyse patterns and implement measures to ease traffic flow. Additionally, the system will factor in weather conditions and local events that may impact traffic, enabling pre-emptive traffic management strategies,” the official added.
Porur resident R Shankar Anand welcomed the initiative but pointed out that the Vanagaram toll plaza has turned into an unofficial private bus boarding point. “Nowhere else in the country do toll roads have such setups within 100m of a plaza. NHAI should relocate it before implementing tech upgrades,” he said.