Long queues of vehicles clogged roads in the Himachal Pradesh capital on Saturday after the ‘one-minute traffic light scheme’ was halted for a day on a trial basis.
The plan put forward by Shimla police last month to make Shimla traffic jam free has been reversed after some negative comments on social media platforms.
In addition to the roads, long queues of vehicles were also observed in the peripheral areas of the parking lots, causing severe inconvenience to locals and tourists.
The distance that could previously be covered in just 10 to 15 minutes took hours, a local said.
One tourist said it took them a whole day to travel the 10-kilometer distance from Kaithu to Sanjauli and then back.
The roads from Taradevi to Sanjauli and the circular road, also known as the Chariot road, were crowded with vehicles moving at a snail’s pace.
“It was a terrible journey and entering Shimla seemed like a nightmare,” said Jeffery, a tourist from Moga in Punjab.
Shimla Police (SP) Superintendent Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi said: “After some negative comments on social media sites about the new traffic system, we decided to go back to the original system on a trial basis, but long-term traffic jams blocked almost all roads. And we had to go back to the one-minute traffic plan in the afternoon to alleviate congestion.”
More than 20,000 vehicles have entered Shimla from Friday to Saturday 4pm, he told PTI, adding that in May around 11.06 lakh vehicles including 2.09 lakh tourist vehicles entered Shimla, but there were no traffic jams as the new plan worked.
The ‘one minute traffic cycle or one minute traffic light plan’ is based on time, number and space. According to this, traffic is released every minute at a ratio of 40/20 or 30/30 seconds, which implies that vehicles would stop for 40 seconds and release for 20 seconds every minute during peak hours and would release and would stop for 30 seconds during normal times. .
In presenting the initiative, the police had proposed installing traffic lights at 10 points, also known as bottlenecks, to ensure smooth and smooth traffic movement in the city.
The new system would reduce the time to get through the city during rush hour from 60 to 90 minutes to 15 to 25 minutes, they said.
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