The state capital can hope to have a traffic junction improvement plan for the smart roads and other important arteries by the end of this year.

State urban development secretary Ajoy Kumar Singh on Monday directed project management consultant Tractebel Engineering Private Limited and the executing firm, Calcutta-based Honeywell Automation India Limited, to submit the traffic junction improvement plan within a month not only on the smart roads but also for other roads.

The orders came after he reviewed the progress of the four smart roads and the command control and communication centre, a.k.a C4, component of the smart city project.

“The traffic junction improvement plan would be set at 28 places on the four smart roads which will see installation of integrated traffic management signals and adaptive traffic control points,” said Ashutosh Kumar Singh, spokesperson for Jharkhand Urban Infrastructure Development Company Limited (Juidco). “The secretary asked the agencies to complete the traffic junction improvement plan after studying the traffic density within a month. The plan would suggest on marking of lanes near the junction for seamless traffic movement,” Ashutosh added.

The traffic junctions will have integrated traffic management system which will make it easy to detect traffic signal and speed violations along with adaptive traffic control (based on the traffic density on a road which can glow based on dimness of daylight), CCTV surveillance, public announcement system, variable message signboards (informing public of traffic snarls and other important information) and environment monitoring system (display of real time environment data on air quality and weather at selected locations).

“The secretary also asked the private agencies and Juidco to ensure that traffic junctions are installed along two smart roads, the 2.55km Birsa Chowk-airport stretch costing Rs 42.52 crore, and the 8.85km long Raj Bhavan-Birsa Chowk stretch (via Main Road), costing Rs 162.7 crore, on a priority basis so that people in the capital get acquainted with the smart features of the road,” said the spokesperson.

The private agencies are learnt to have told the secretary that 81 traffic junctions would be set up, of which 28 are on the four smart roads.

The secretary also asked the private agency working on C4 to prepare a study on number of parking spots required based on traffic density on roads along with their proposal of command control. The agencies have also been asked to submit a report on shifting of utility lines on the common utility ducts being constructed along the four smart roads.

The smart roads would have common underground ducts for drains and electrical wiring, optical fibre cables and also gas pipelines. Each flank of the road would vary between 7m and 9m, while the width of pavements and cycling tracks would be between 2.5m and 4m.

The ducts will be under the pavements and cycling tracks. The common ducts will negate the need for the roads to be dug up frequently for laying utility cables and pipes.