IIT Hyderabad's M2Smart Project offers low-carbon solve to manage urban transport

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Hyderabad Wednesday announced the launch of ‘M2Smart Project’ Testbed to develop low-carbon models for Indian transportation. The project testbed, which was launched Tuesday, would generate a practical ‘handbook’ on low carbon urban transportation for developing countries based on big data of Indian transportation and create traffic flow models from the data analysis, a press release from IIT Hyderabad said. The field testbed system has been deployed at IIT-H campus and along a 30 km stretch of NH-65. There are many key components of traffic management system such as real-time traffic flow monitoring using cameras and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi sensors, speed detection safety system, conflict warning system using traffic signal lights and remote environment gas sensing in IIT-H campus as well as NH 65, it said. [caption id=“attachment_6723881” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Traffic in a street corner, Varanasi Benares India. Image credit; Wikimedia Commons[/caption] The traffic monitoring is done here and in Ahmedabad, where IIT Hyderabad researchers have installed traffic monitoring cameras at major junctions. They are able to monitor and compare the differences between Hyderabad and Ahmedabad traffic conditions in real-time, it said. IIT Hyderabad Director, UB Desai said, “The testbed under the M2Smart project is aimed at this fundamental objective. With the data that we acquire using the testbed, we would be able to have a better understanding of multi-modal transportation in India and we would be able to provide solutions to reduce the carbon footprint.” The Testbed would also work on the development of the intersection decision support system using sensors, communication and computer technologies to help drivers recognise risky conditions so as to avoid collisions, it said. The Testbed would also be developing micro traffic simulation models based on the collected and aggregated traffic data from several sensing devices using big data analysis and establish a strong partnership between Indian and Japanese researchers through the programme. ‘M2Smart’ (Smart Cities for Emerging Countries based on Sensing, Network and Big Data Analysis of Multimodal Regional Transport System) is a joint research project under SATREPS (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development Program) programme between India and Japan, the release added.