Hyderabad: Traffic police personnel are switching off timers at signals at busy junctions at Khairatabad, Panjagutta, Nagarjuna Circle and Ameerpet among others, especially during peak hours. This leaves drivers uncertain about when they will get their turn to move.
Mr D. Harish, a commuter, said “The timers are switched off Khairatabad, Abids and DGP’s office. This makes driving difficult especially during the busy hours. Another possible reason may be poor maintenance, which should be corrected.”
Shaheen, who drives past Panjagutta regularly, said, “Every day I see lot of chaos at Panjagutta junction. It takes 15 minutes to cross the crossroads which otherwise takes just a minute. I have never seen the traffic signal operated in timer mode.”
Police personnel say that they are forced to do this because of the ‘destroyed’ geometry. The four roads leading to the traffic junction differ in terms of width and road condition. Besides, the volume of traffic each road can handle differs.
During peak hours, this difference in vehicle capacity becomes crucial as traffic struggles to move through narrow roads. To give them more time and prevent a bottleneck from forming, the police switches off the timers and takes to manually changing the lights.
Panjagutta traffic inspector K. Venkateswara Reddy, explaining to this newspaper why the police switches off timers, said that all major roads in the city have one-way traffic during peak hours but at Panjagutta where the vehicles come from all sides.
“The width of the four roads is uneven. They narrow down at some places where the vehicles have to slow down and change lanes. This can can easily lead to traffic jams. If we keep it in automated mode, one side of the traffic will come to halt to avoid such a situation.”
Prof. Laxman Rao of JNTU’s transportation department said, “Basically it is an infrastructure fault. The common area is geometrically not equal. Pedestrian sidewalks and crosswalks are absent. It is important to instal pedestrian signals.”
Other solutions would be to stop the free left and allow pedestrian crossing.
Signals should be synchronised on a long stretch, he said.
