IT solutions offered for traffic woes

IT solutions offered for traffic woes

Benget Simbolon Tnb, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The traffic congestion seems never ending in Jakarta as the
number of cars increases much faster than the number of new roads
and people become ever more mobile.

Some analysts have even predicted that in five years' time,
traveling five kilometers in this sprawling city will take one
hour on average. This will, of course, lead to a lot of wasted
time and energy, and worsening air pollution.

Can the problems be solved?

To answer the question, the Japanese Highway Industry
Development Organization (HIDO). which comes under the auspices
of the Japanese Ministry of Land Infrastructure and
Transportation (MILT), plans to hold a workshop on mobilizing
information technology (IT) in order to solve transportation
problems here on Friday.

The Japanese ministry, in cooperation with the World Bank, has
devised potential solutions for traffic problems in metropolitan
cities in Southeast Asia based on the use of information
technology.

"The workshop on the application of information technology for
better transportation in Jakarta is based on a "probe vehicle"
survey conducted by Nippon Koei in 2004," Prof. Haruo Ishida of
Tsukuba University in Japan said here on Tuesday.

Ishida, who has developed IT solutions for cities in
developing countries, said that participants would discuss the
ongoing transportation problems in Jakarta as identified by the
survey with a view to finding tentative IT solutions.

The workshop would also touch on potential and advanced
systems for road traffic information, bus locations, electronic
toll payments, and road control and maintenances.

The IT applications would include providing information on
travel times and traffic conditions using information boards, on-
board units updated via radio, mobile phones, and the Internet,
building a location bus system for the Transjakarta-Busway and
developing an electronic toll collection system.

He said the workshop would be attended by a wide range of
participants, including representatives of the National
Development Planning Board (Bappenas), the Ministry of Public
Works, the Jakarta administration, the Ministry of
Communications, the Transjakarta Busway company, the University
of Indonesia, JICA, and the University of Tsukuba in Japan.