Implementation of Camera based Speed Management in India

Abstract

Over the last decade, road infrastructure in India has improved significantly due to various initiatives taken up by the Government of India and various state governments. The upgraded roads have resulted in higher speed of vehicles in urban and rural areas, which invokes a need for speed management at some locations. In India, stand-alone speed limit signs are found ineffective due to several reasons such as bringing down the speed to a value below stipulated limit, restricting the speed during 24 hours a day whereas, in majority of locations, it is required only for a limited time, such as school zones. With this background, the paper deals with various aspects related to implementation of speed management using cameras, in lieu of physical measures, on Indian roads in order to overcome the disadvantages associated with physical measures for speed control and to ensure effective enforcement. The study specifically aims at identifying various parameters in installation of suitable speed camera in Indian context and then assessing the system using AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) on the identified factors of implementation, and TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) for evaluation of other parameters of implementation. It was found that, Fixed Speed Camera was the most suitable type of camera in Indian context and Long Tangents of Roads was the site, which inevitably required the installation of such system.