Works are under way for the introduction of an ‘intelligent’ traffic management system, co-financed by the European Union at a cost of €700,000, that will provide motorists with real-time information and regular updates on traffic through the use of 34 variable message signs and 48 lane-changing signs. The project includes a network of CCTV cameras that will be “the traffic centre’s eyes” on Malta’s roads.
Transport Malta says the traffic control centre will be an “information hub” monitoring the main road arteries and relaying information to drivers through the signs displayed on the roads, radio bulletins and a website. The control centre will also have a number of traffic marshals who can be deployed to a particular point to aid traffic control if the need arises.
It regards the project as a considerable step forward in helping to manage Malta’s increasingly clogged up road networks by alleviating traffic congestion, especially when accident, flood or road closures occur. The network of signs will be used extensively for the first time during the implementation of the major Kappara junction project.
There are two key points arising from this new initiative.
The first is to welcome it. It is not the silver bullet that will solve Malta’s increasingly desperate traffic problems but anything that helps to tackle some of them must be a good thing.
The cost to Malta’s economy of the current inefficient, slow-moving traffic – and occasional gridlock - are huge. Moreover, the frustration endured by drivers caught up in it takes a major toll on workers’ health and productivity. It also inevitably affects their driving, leading to the kind of impatient behaviour and bumper-to-bumper traffic accidents seen daily on our roads.
The introduction of real-time information about the state of traffic ahead should help to ease some of that frustration. But it is vital that a concerted information campaign should be run by Transport Malta which spells out more clearly how the new system will operate in practice and the part drivers themselves will need to play in order to derive maximum benefit from it.
An ‘intelligent’ traffic management system will be of little benefit if it is not used intelligently by the human beings it is meant to help.
The driver is the first link in the safety chain on the road and the one most prone to human error. The effectiveness of road safety depends ultimately on the user’s behaviour. If this is not disciplined, courteous and technically skilful, the curse that is the current dangerous and depressing experience of most drivers on the Maltese roads will persist. Greater driver education (and enforcement) is essential.
The second is to note that Transport Malta sees this as only the first phase of the project. While details about what happens next are scant, one can only hope it will lead in due course to an even more comprehensive system of intelligent traffic management being introduced. Such a system would, for example, see that all traffic lights on major arterial roads and junctions are centrally controlled, combined with a system of ‘average speed cameras’ to control traffic flows.
It may sound like Big Brother but the need for an intelligent and sustainable traffic management strategy – which is utterly lacking – to be put into effect could not be more urgent if Maltese roads are to escape the gridlock which daily confronts drivers.
In a small island like this it should be feasible for modern technology to make improvements out of all proportion to the financial investment incurred.