Chandigarh: Residents raise issue with timers of traffic lights due to LED installation

At around 40 intersections in Chandigarh, where traffic lights are being upgraded to LED lights, their timers have not been functioning properly, according to residents; road safety experts say this can lead to mishaps

At around 40 intersections in Chandigarh, where traffic lights are being upgraded to LED lights, their timers have not been functioning properly, according to residents. The timers indicate how many seconds are left before the light turns green, and if they malfunction, it can lead to mishaps, as per road safety experts.

The timers indicate how many seconds are left before the traffic lights turn green. (Keshav SIngh/HT)

Madan Gupta Spatu, senior executive member of the Second Innings Association, said, “Even though traffic monitoring systems will be put up under the Smart City Project to intelligently control traffic, right now even the digital clock installed earlier on traffic lights have stopped working. When the light turns from green to red without any warning, people who stop their vehicle are in danger of being hit by the vehicle behind them.”

Senior deputy mayor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu added that he has received many complaints about the issue. “Sometimes, the timer and the lights aren’t synced properly, which also leads to confusion.”

Harman Sidhu, member of the Chandigarh State Road Safety Council, said, “This issue is particularly seen where older traffic lights are being upgraded to silver LED lights. While upgrading the traffic lights is fine, the earlier features must be retained. We as drivers have become used to these timers, and without them, chances of accidents will rise as vehicles speed up to try and pass the lights before they turn green.” He added that officials must solve this issue proactively rather than wait for complaints to pour in.

However, chief engineer of the municipal corporation (MC), NP Sharma maintained this is not why the timers are not working properly. “The new LED traffic lights being installed in the city by the MC are maintained by a private contractor and they have a dashboard to check the real-time status of the working of lights and efficiency stays over 90%. Some faults are bound to come up and we request residents to call on the MC complaint number, 0172-2787200 if this happens and the issue will be resolved in a time-based manner,” he said.

Officials of the UT administration added that traffic lights malfunction more during the monsoons as water can interfere with their functioning. The maintenance of the traffic lights isn’t done by the traffic police, but the personnel on duty convey complaints to the MC or UT authorities. Some of the timers and traffic lights are also turned off in the morning and evening during the peak time of traffic to manually regulate the traffic.

Superintendent of police (SP, traffic) Ketan Bansal, said, “People have sent representations about this and traffic police personnel are deployed to manually direct the traffic wherever this happens. If people face this problem, they can contact the traffic helpline at 1073 or reach out to us on social media and we will get the issue resolved.”