AI might meet its match in Dhaka South's traffic

Three years after taking charge of Dhaka South City Corporation, Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapash recently decided to bring an end to the crazy traffic by announcing the installation of Artificial Intelligence-based traffic signals at some 50 intersections. 

But what AI is intelligent enough to manage Dhaka's notorious traffic? 

Look at the dysfunctional traffic signals along your trip from home to the office or vice versa. How long have the signals been left damaged, neglected and inoperative? How much money was spent for the installation of the signals and how much money is being spent to manually operate traffic now?  

The announcement may seem even more underwhelming for transportation policy experts, who are quite aware about the failures of the multiple previous projects that had aimed to digitally minimise the capital's traffic congestion. 

One does not have to be an AI expert to see that the non-lane-based traffic network of Dhaka is mostly indisciplined, analogue-based, and there is no digital component in the traffic management system whatsoever. For AI to work, it requires a huge amount of digital data inputs. But Dhaka's traffic problem is an analog one.  

A digital traffic system should be lane-oriented where the arrival pattern of vehicles is predictable. In that case, traffic management can be taken care of by AI, reducing human labour. Developed countries are using Intelligent Traffic System gainfully. But the precondition is that the traffic management should be disciplined and digital. 

"AI is not a panacea. AI applications work under some conditions. If a gridlock develops in a busy road, what will the AI do by reading the road condition. In Dhaka, adaptation of an intelligent traffic system is far beyond reality," said Dr Md Shamsul Hoque, road communication expert and civil engineering professor at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). 

As the Dhaka traffic management has lost resilience, notorious gridlocks happen in usual peak hours and also in some occasions like VIP movement, political rallies and public examinations. 

Transportation policy and planning expert Professor Md Musleh Uddin Hasan, a faculty of Urban and Regional Planning Department at BUET, believes that the use of technology, not necessarily in traffic signal management, may ease or contribute to troubleshooting all our daily chores.

"But signalling, whether it is technology-based or manual, is not the major issue for Dhaka's traffic management. There are some inherent problems and without solving them, no technology can ease the traffic congestion in the mega city," said Hasan. 

The traffic network of Dhaka has never been under control and the authorities have not yet developed a network properly. Use of technology or AI may relieve traffic management stress at a few particular spots for a short period. But the city dwellers will certainly not be benefited, Hasan said.

"There are no visible divisions like primary, secondary, distributor, or service roads in Dhaka. Rickshaws can run on the Airport Road and private cars on the narrow alleys. There are no separate roads for fast and slow vehicles. To operate a traffic system with AI, lanes need to be fixed first." 

Explaining the relation between AI and traffic systems, Hasan said that the AI-based programme needs to predict the speed of moving vehicles and the passersby as well. The programme will fail if it becomes confused by the whimsical acceleration and braking of the vehicles, which is a very common phenomenon on Dhaka's roads.

There are different modes of transport like public buses, private cars, goods-carrying vans, pushcarts, rickshaws, motorcycles, and bicycles. 

"So the programming needs to consider every behaviour of the vehicles. I doubt that will be the case because it may be created by non-native consultants and engineers who certainly are not familiar with the unpredictable behaviours of local drivers," Hasan said, recommending that the inherent limitations must be resolved and the local experts need to be included into the programming if the authorities are determined to adapt AI. 

In this reality, lessons from the previous projects having 'Digital', 'Countdown', 'Solar', 'Synchronisation' terms should have been followed. But the project implementation reports might have been ignored while initiating a new project. 

"I am quite sure that some project-hungry people are 'enthusiastic' about AI-based traffic signalling," said Professor Shamsul. 

When a project requires consultancy, there is a 100% possibility that the project planners have little knowledge on the field, he opined.  

Consultants may give a structural idea but who will take care of the system? There is no signal unit or signal designers, traffic engineer or related professional who can deal with extraordinary situations on the road.

He stated: Traffic management is a daily-basis job. There is a vivid example in the Dhaka Cantonment Area. 

"This is the only place in Dhaka where some traffic signals work properly because the trained military personnel plan, design, update the design, operate, monitor and maintain the signals on a regular basis. This is the specification for an intelligent traffic system," Shamsul said.

The authorities have undertaken several projects to minimise Dhaka's traffic congestion, but all have failed so far. Dhaka's traffic control system saw a significant change with the installation of automatic signals in 2001. Under the Dhaka Urban Transport Project — with funding from the World Bank — 68 traffic signals were set up in between 2001 and 2005.

The Tk13 crore-project soon became dysfunctional mainly due to poor maintenance.

After seven years, the two Dhaka city corporations restored the signal lights by adding solar panels and timer countdown systems at 70 crossings and launched a trial run, which eventually also failed. As a result, the authorities returned to manual traffic management. They failed again when a remote control system was implemented to use the signal lights. 

Interestingly, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) took an ambitious project to bring Dhaka's four crossings — Gulshan 1, Mohakhali, Phulbari and Paltan intersections — under a single automatic traffic control system named Intelligent Transportation System.

The project tenure has been extended four times so far. According to a news report, ultrasonic vehicle detectors, vehicle image detectors, CCTVs and other necessary equipment were installed at the four crossings. Two special computers with ITS software were imported from Japan, but one of them was stolen from a warehouse of Dhaka South City Corporation before installation, said the news report. 

The Project Director Mohammad Rabiul Alam recently told The Business Standard that a proposal for project tenure extension is pending at the Planning Commission. 

While enquired whether he was informed about the Dhaka South mayor's announcement, he replied, "The DTCA project includes two sites under Dhaka South. Although we have not yet discussed it in detail, we will try to coordinate with the city corporation to avoid overlapping," said Rabiul. 

Professor Shamsul, however, seems skeptical about the success of the projects. According to him, all the previous projects failed because they were consultant-driven and lacked proper professionals to maintain the systems on a regular basis. 

Footpaths, mass transit and electrification are the continuity of development and the signal operations need to be uniformed and consistent. Professor Shamsul believes that a metropolitan government can only address these limitations. But Dhaka is now split due to political considerations. 

And the risks of serious mismanagement remains if the two city corporations undertake different traffic management systems — mismanagement that might very well bully the smartest AI into submission.