KUCHING: Taffic congestions in Batu Kawa will be a thing of the past once the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) is installed in two months’ time, said Local Government Minister Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian.
He said during each peak hour, over 2,000 road users would be on Batu Kawa roads.
“It is more of a way of linking traffic signals to provide road management coordination which would be engineered by Public Works Department (JKR) staff during peak hours in the morning and evening,” said Dr Sim during the visit to sites and JKR office with SUPP Youth members and JKR Divisional engineer, Awang Mohd Fadillah Awang Redzuan, yesterday.
He said CCTV cameras would be installed at three traffic light junctions in Batu Kawa area and would be adjusted during peak hours to ensure the smooth flow of traffic.
The traffic light junctions to be installed with SCATS will be those at Jalan Stephen Yong, the General Operations Force Camp and Desa Wira.
Dr Sim said SCATS is an intelligent traffic management used to synchronise traffic signals to optimise traffic flow in heavy traffic congested areas.
To use SCATS, there should be SCATS-compatible traffic signal controller, a centralised computer system to manage all traffic signal controllers, a communication network for the centralised computer system and vehicle detectors at each intersection.
“This project is being tendered out and in one or two months’ time, we will get the whole project rolling,” he said.
He explained that JKR staff who would be monitoring the CCTVs would control the traffic light systems in certain sections where there would be more vehicles; the Green Light will be adjusted on the spot to give more time for the vehicles to pass through.
“I am not saying this system will totally eliminate traffic congestions, but it will sure help to ease the traffic congestions,” he said.
Dr Sim said the opposition had hit out at the traffic congestion issues in Batu Kawah constituency.
“Traffic congestions in Batu Kawah did not start when I took over. It has been there for more than five years and during the elections, they (opposition) would shout about it. Once they won the election, everything quietens down, expecting the road congestions to go away. Now that Batu Kawah is under us (BN-SUPP), the blame game has started,” he said.
He said that instead of arguing, he prefered to study the problem and to get down to it.
He also urged Batu Kawah residents to be patient for a couple of months while the system is being installed.
