Students of the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) have developed a radio frequency identification (RFID) based technology for road traffic management.
With applications ranging from electronic toll collection and collision avoidance system, the technology has been developed as part of the institute's annual business convention 'Strategym 2010'.
"We developed this technology as part of the business convention but we are now in talks with the Mumbai Traffic Police for implementation of this system," said Kaustubh Kolhar, a student of JBIMS and part of the six-member team who developed the RFID system. Apparently, the team was declared the second runner up under the Strategym 2010 contest for business ideas.
According to Kolhar, the team is also in talks with CRISIL for the technology.
"CRISIL has also contacted us and is in the process of reviewing our system. We are awaiting response from the CRISIL as well," he added.
As part of its applications, the RFID technology can be used in areas like electronic toll collection, insurance, PUC, car trafficking, congestion pricing, traffic ticket collection, collision avoidance system around steep turns, parking and prevention of over speeding of vehicles.
"Implementation of the RFID technology will involve each RTO taking the responsibility of installation of RFID tags in each of the vehicles and RFID readers at strategic locations as per requirement. The entire RTO operations can be automated if the computers at each of the RTO office are networked and connected to central RTO using database; which will have all the information about all the vehicles. This can be used to avoid car trafficking, accidents and reduce congestion by raising or reducing specific congestion fees depending on peak hours on a particular route," Kolhar explained. Meanwhile, the team also studied similar systems prevalent in other parts of the world.