TRAVELLING AT SPEED

The large number of private vehicles, traffic congestion, lack of parking spaces and bus stops, buses running without timetables and general traffic chaos are by no means all of Baku's transport problems. Unfortunately, the roads are still a shambles. But there is a solution. The experts are unanimous in agreeing that transport is a vast system that needs to be controlled and in our high-tech age this is not such a difficult task. All it requires is the desire - and the money.

What is an IVHS?

Of course, there has always been a desire to eradicate the capital's traffic problems, and not just on the part of public transport users and motorists. The Azerbaijani Transport Ministry has shown enviable persistence in trying to deal with at least some of the problems. It has embarked on an extensive study of the experiences of a number of leading countries in this area and has decided to use the expertise of South Korea, which has introduced an Intelligent Vehicle Highway System (IVHS) in its capital Seoul.

But before discussing the advantages of this system, we should point out that South Korea is by no means the only country using the IVHS. Italy (Turin), USA (Los Angeles) and a number of other countries are also on an impressive list. Its introduction involves setting up a single coordinated traffic control centre which is the brains, the core of the system, without which the IVHS simply would not work. Such centres were first set up at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, and the first projects were implemented in the mid 1990s.

So what is this unified system and what problems is it supposed to resolve?

We'll start by saying that the basis of all IVHS systems is a continuous flow of on-line information about the state of the roads, the speed of transport flow, congestion, bottle-necks, accidents and general road traffic conditions. This information is fed to the centre where it is promptly processed. And it is not only the experts who need it. Passengers and bus drivers, taxi drivers, private motorists, highway patrol officers and people waiting at bus stops can also make use of it, because the information is relayed to display panels which can be found, in many countries, at bus stops and on certain sections of motorways. Moreover, traffic control centres in many major towns and cities have information not just about traffic and passenger transportation but also about parking.

Video surveillance systems are also used to maintain safety on roads and motorways and this helps to control traffic flows and to organize the movement of transport to separate road sections, different localities and so on.

First in the CIS!

Clearly, this system has numerous advantages, and the results were not long in coming. In the spring of 2008 an agreement was signed in Baku between the Azerbaijani Ministry of Transport and the South Korean Ministry of Construction and Transport for the creation of a unified traffic control centre in Baku as part of an Intelligent Vehicle Highway System. The South Korean SK C&C Company, which had drafted a project for a similar centre in Seoul, organized the technical and financial aspects of the project.

According to the Transport Ministry, the IVHS being built in Azerbaijan will be the first in the CIS. The aim of the project is to exercise full control of traffic, including transport on fixed routes and operating to a schedule, to eradicate traffic jams etc. by means of a single traffic control centre. In other words, it will facilitate prompt decision making to eliminate problems.

Work is continuing on the construction of the unified traffic control centre at 105 Heydar Aliyev Prospect. Later, the system will be extended to Absheron, Khirdalan, Sumgayit and Ganja.

The second basic step in the IVHS project involves purchasing state-of-the-art buses and replenishing the bus fleet. The Azerbaijani Transport Ministry is already moving to eliminate or merge duplicate routes and to replace small-capacity buses with medium or large-capacity vehicles. Only 217 of the current 310 routes in Baku will remain.

As a result of work already carried out, 1,496 of 3,300 small-capacity buses have been taken out of service and replaced by 1,130 large-capacity and 674 medium-capacity vehicles which have been brought in to Baku according to plan.

Following President Ilham Aliyev's instruction of 26 October 2007, the Azeryolservis open joint-stock company, Baku's Main Highway Patrol Directorate (GUDP), the capital's executive authority and the Bakisarnishinnyagliyyaty limited liability company decided on the bus stops for the 664 buses entering the zone covered by the IVHS, and the construction and erection of bays has already begun.

So far the capital's executive authority has constructed 375 bus stops and another 289 are due to be installed. Some 29 bays have been built, with another 635 to come.

Electronic display panels, using satellite navigation and showing the routes and movement of buses will be set up at these new bus stops. The effectiveness of bus stop siting will be monitored from the point of view of passenger convenience with the aid of display panels and video cameras. Namik Hasanov, head of the Transport Ministry secretariat, says that the new bus stops are due to be installed before the end of this year.

Furthermore, the IVHS also provides for the installation of about 150 new sets of electronic traffic lights. Generally speaking, as the system is introduced the number of traffic lights and bus stops will be streamlined.

In the longer term the project will provide for the introduction of an electronic card payment system, offering passenger services at the highest level. Among other services, passengers and tourists will be provided with information about the best routes and choices of transfer, as well as centralized ticket sales for a chosen route by means of POS terminals set up at bus and railway stations, airports and sea ports.

The original cost of the IVHS was $55 million. However, Hasanov says, it has leapt to $77 million "because video surveillance will not just be carried out in six basic directions". In the main, Hasanov points out, the money will be spent on setting up the video surveillance system.

“Sweet November”

Incidentally, Baku's Main Highway Patrol Directorate is doing a great deal to eliminate road congestion. In particular, according to Arastun Medjidov, head of the GUDP's public liaison department, special sensors that track the density of traffic flows and which can be switched automatically, depending on the degree of congestion, are already being fitted to traffic lights. In other words, where necessary a so-called 'green wave' can be switched on, thanks to which traffic can travel through a number of streets without having to stop at the lights. A similar system has already been introduced on Heydar Aliyev Prospect, Neftchilar and Bulbul, as well as on Behbutov Street and the results have been positive.

Medjidov also said that a driver's navigation system will be introduced in the future. Using a special programme recorded on an on-board router, the driver will obtain information about road congestion from sensors set up on roads. In other words, the IVHS will be able to control transport as effectively as possible. The only question is - when will all this happen?

As Ziya Mamedov, Azerbaijani Transport Minister, said earlier, "this IVHS project is due to be complete in the first half of 2011". However, Chon Khvan Chun, the South Korean Minister of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, says that "the project is expected to be completed in April". In order to clarify this we spoke to Samir Hasanov, head of Bakisarnishinnyagliyyat's press service, and he made it clear that "the project will be fully complete by the end of this year".

We managed to get more precise information from Namik Hasanov, head of the Transport Ministry secretariat, who told R+ that the unified traffic control centre is due to be handed over in November. "And not just the centre - the whole Intelligent Vehicle Highway System will be set in motion", he said.

This means that by the autumn the Azerbaijani capital will be able to boast of the only transport control system in the CIS, with the most up-to-date bus stops and traffic lights. As they leave their homes, public transport users will be able to find out the precise schedule of bus routes, and motorists will know which streets are most congested and will be able to take alternative routes…

It all sounds very encouraging. But when speaking about the IVHS, one should bear in mind that this system only partially solves the problem of bottlenecks, while foreign experts say it is cheaper to build new roads. It all comes down to more expense: information and telecommunications technology is developing all the time, which means that the cost of updating the existing system in the future could be considerable. In short, of the 2bn dollar transport budget, the Mayor of Seoul spends about one tenth every year on IT.

Be that as it may, the IVHS is the most acceptable option for Baku today. You must agree that it is much better to be the target of a video camera than to travel in one's car with an odd licence plate number only on odd days, as they do in Athens. Or not to be able to buy another car because the authorities have introduced artificial restrictions on the number of vehicles per capita or family, as is the case in Singapore. Or not to be able to park - as in Vienna, where a restriction has been imposed on the place and time of parking, as well as an intercept parking system which can be very confusing. Or perhaps you might pay huge sums to enter a city centre - such as has been introduced in London, or not to be able to enter at all, as in Rome?

Yes, there is no limit to the 'gimmicks' conjured up by the authorities in their efforts to reduce traffic congestion. For example, in Los Angeles they have been using a Carpool, joint use of vehicles, since the 1970s: people can find a travelling companion through newspaper advertisements in order to save on fuel and road tolls. Such methods have also been used in Australia. A popular 'Car Hire' system has been operating in Zurich since 1948; a fleet of cars or trucks can be used jointly by several drivers. And there are a great many such examples.

To be frank, the Baku authorities are already adopting some foreign methods. These include a restriction on vehicles entering the Icheri Sheher (Old Town) state historical and architectural reserve and future tolled expressways.  That said, experts and motorists themselves believe that these are not draconian methods.

What is interesting is that video surveillance is always used in a number of traffic restrictions worldwide (for example, the odd-even number system, or parking restrictions and tolled expressways). So we believe that the IVHS system is merely the first step on the way to solving Baku's transport problems which, the bureaucrats promise us, will cease to be transport gridlock from this autumn.