If you’re travelling down the Hyderabad to Vijayawada Highway sometime this week and happen to see a car fitted with what looks like weapons straight out of Mad Max, don’t worry. This one’s here to help, not harm.
The car, fitted with technology, imported by Satra Infrastructure to the city, is part of a new highway assessment programme in association with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the ministry of road transport and highways (MORTH), that not just gauges the conditions of roads, but also geo-tags them and makes them available online to be monitored by the agencies.
Raj Mallela, Satra’s managing director, says that the objective of the programme is to understand why previous systems by the NHAI and MORTH failed, and how they can be upgraded and institutionalised.
“We are developing data collection protocols along with the system development and maintenance, on a national level,” says Mallela adding, “We are collecting around 3000 kilometres of data so that it can be replicated for the remainder of the national highways network.”
The system is based on technology known as ROMDAS, that uses camera, laser profilometers (that assess the physical aspects of the roads), geo-tagging and more, to collect data that cost about Rs 2 crore to import.
“One of the benefits we are providing through the project is that we are recording a geo-referenced video. So the GPS coordinates are imprinted on the video and the data is transferred to the indigenous Gagan Satellite (an Indian GPS based navigation system),” he says.
“All the data is a valid record that can be used, for example, to monitor encroachments, which can be used in a court of law. A minister can sit in his office and click a button and see when a particular road was constructed, who constructed it, its status, the current condition and the physical attributes of the road, he adds.
The project, which was flagged off by minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari on May 15, has since collected data for about 1,000 kilometres of National Highway so far, and in the next three years hopes to complete the remainder of the 96,000 odd kilometres.
“The system is basically an electronic asset register,” Mallela says adding, “Right now in case we need details of some part of the highway, the ministry or NHAI does not have the information readily available. The system can also see if any contracted work has really been completed or not. In remote areas, it is difficult for someone to go and verify and validate things like this.”
