BY DEFINITION, traffic means the movement of vehicles, ships and persons in an area.
What that means is that there is already traffic when there is at least one vehicle, ship or person moving in that area.
In other words, traffic could either be light or heavy but either way, there is always traffic.
Same goes for traffic that could either be slow or fast, because either way, there is always traffic for as long as there is a movement. That said, we should never say that there is traffic if we see it to be heavy or slow.
In other words, we could not prevent traffic from happening and what we could do instead is to manage it, so that the movement is always fast and not slow.
In a manner of speaking, it could be said that the movement of traffic is a function of supply and demand. In this case, the commodity in question is the road space that is either narrow or broad.
If the road space is narrow and the demand is high, the movement becomes slow. In theory, the movement should become fast even if the demand is high, for as long as the road space is broad.
That is just a theory however, because the movement could still become slow even if the road space is broad, if and when there are obstructions, or if and when the vehicles would tend to block each other whenever the undisciplined drivers would swerve from lane to lane, thus disrupting the orderly flow.
Some critics would say that the movement of traffic in Metro Manila is always slow because the demand for road space keeps on increasing, because of the increasing number of vehicles, but the supply of road space is not increasing, because no new roads are being built, or the old roads are not being expanded.
While those critics might be technically correct, there are many other ways to maximize the existing supply of road space and conversely, there are many other ways of minimizing the demand for the existing supply of road space, by way of reducing the number of vehicles on these roads.
A number of approaches have been tried by the government, but there is obviously a need to try many other ways.
So far, the approaches tried by the government are mostly analog, manual or physical in nature. Since many of these approaches are not entirely successful, it is perhaps time for the government to try some other approaches that would be digital, automated or technical in nature. To start with, there seems to be no database anywhere that could store historical and empirical data about the movement of traffic in Metro Manila.
If only such a database exists, then we would be able to use data analytics in order to make predictions about probable traffic congestion, or we would be able to intelligently direct the flow of traffic at certain times in certain intersections.
It also appears that most of the traffic lights in Metro Manila are not interconnected, and therefore these could not be integrated. As it is supposed to be, the signals of the traffic lights are supposed to be programmable from at least one location.
As it is now, it appears that the signal sequences of these traffic lights are mechanical in nature, meaning that the sequences are not based on real time data that should be based on real demand for road space. In theory, traffic lights could be synchronized such that all cars in the same cluster of lanes could go into one common direction across several intersections. Right now, many traffic lights are equipped with timers, but it appears that these would follow the same routine regardless of the volume of vehicles in the vicinity.
It also appears that most of the closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in Metro Manila are also not interconnected, and the images that are captured by these devices are not going to a central location where these could be analyzed. If I am not mistaken, most of these cameras are still analog, and therefore these devices are not capable of capturing digital images that could be transmitted using Internet Protocol (IP).
Given that limitation, it would be difficult to use facial recognition (FR) technologies in these images, for other purposes such as crime prevention and crowd control. That should be another goal, to maximize the use of traffic solutions so that it would have other public safety applications.
As the saying goes, if there is a will, there is a way. In the case of technologies, there is always a technological solution to each and every problem, therefore there is always a way.
The fact is, the solutions are just waiting to be deployed, assuming that the problems could also be identified. In almost all cases, vehicle identification technologies would be very useful in restricting entry to certain areas, or to identify violators or lawbreakers.
Among the technologies that could be used are radio frequency ID (RFID), near field communications (NFC), quick response (QR) code and bar codes.
Perhaps it could be said that there is no shortage of technologies, there is only a shortage of insights./PN
