Bangkok Traffic Police To Become 'smart'

[jrincon17]

thought it was an oxymoron

[catweazle]

Bangkok Traffic Police To Become 'smart'

I believe the accompanying photo says it all...

What does S.M.A.R.T. stand for?

Sit Monitor Assess Resign and Transfer (to a hassle-free region)

[Fozfromoz]

Any sentence containing the three words Thai, police and smart is an absolute false statement.

Couldnt agree more.

It should be Thai, Police, and something that rhymes with smart.......................yes, now I've got it.......BAHT.

[Udox]

When you hear so many of these 'good ideas ' and 'promises' but never see the results - is it any wonder why we become so cynical.?

You can only 'cry wolf' so many times before people will stop listening.

I used to work for a boss like that - could talk the talk but certainly couldn't 'walk the walk' !

[Keesters]

The average heart beats at 60+ per minute. If the blood don't flow the body stops. Ditto the traffic. 4-5 minutes per side at an intersection and you have instant chaos - miss the light and you could be 20 minutes. Having police override electronic controls is sheer stupidity. Teach the traffic police to not interfere, sync the lights along streets to be timed so traffic all moves continuously and set them at no more that 45 second intervals in peak hours and bingo. No waiting for Constable Somchai to stop sipping coffee whilst talking to his Gik on his iPhone 5 he obtained by .... means. Web cams? Sure, why not, but don't let the B.i.B. put their sticky little fingers anywhere near buttons.

For Pattaya down to Sattahip; anytime I've seen the BIB control the traffic lights it becomes chaos. They seem to think they help but in reality all they do is hinder. I agree "don't let the B.i.B. put their sticky little fingers anywhere near buttons"

Their time would be better spent waking up the idiot drivers who have dozed off while waiting for the lights to turn green.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Keesters

[Jim walker]

I would rather trust a computer to relate to the flow of traffic than one of the BB sitting in his little booth chatting on his mobile this is the only downside to living in BKK the traffic, it would also not be good for us drivers in BKK if the BB got smarter or were Vaguely

educated it would just encourage them to hunt in packs and how to scam more tea money from us.

[dude007]

Students with government tablet computers will become smart cops... 65% of them [students] declared that they have no problem with "corruption" and "lying" as long as it serves their own interest!

Thailand's future looks bright!

[Imkah]

From what I have seen driving in Bangkok a significant contribution to the traffic chaos is down to the fact that the lights at major intersections are far too long resulting in a massive slug of traffic merely migrating from one choke point to another. Furthermore the use of police officers controling the lights serves little purpose if all they are doing is relying on what they can see from their control box.

Reduce the holding time and phase the lights electronicaly dependant to traffic flow direction at the respective peak hours.

Another thing that is blatantly obvious is the shere lack of driver disipline with regard to lane merging. These drivers choose which ever lane moves them forward with total disregard to where they need to be at the next intersection. All too often I have seen traffic jams caused by some inconsiderate prick who has migrated down the outside lane only to try to cross three traffic lanes as he wants to turn left at the lights.

A further major contributor to traffic flow is the God given right assumed by Taxi's ,Mini Vans and Busses to stop in the second lane to allow passenger to enter or alight, thewreby reducing a 3 lane flow to a single lane

Last but not least is the lazy self important attitude of local drivers that feel they have the right to double park in order to by dinner from the road side stalls to take home.Again 2 or 3 lanes reduced to one.

Many systemic improvements can and should be made but them will not suceed unless driver attitudes are seriously changed.

The reasoning, as far as I understand, behind the long "holding time" at intersections is: no. of vehicles going in either direction cannot be changed. At the change from red to green, there will always be (apart from the motorcycles, that is) a few seconds for drivers to react and get into gear. So if you change the lights every 45 seconds, you'll loose a minute or two of natural flow due to human reaction time. Makes sense to me.

I think you're point about driver's discipline and your further points are the major causes of jams, given the amount of traffic we have.

If a new, "intelligent" system can help the police to electronically phase the lights, as you say, according to peak hour either way, this might be of great value. Or even better: join me on the BTS/MRT and top the trip up with a final haul on a motorcycle or song taew for the fresh air!

[Thai at Heart]

As was mentioned earlier, the traffic here in Manila is waaaaay worse. They dont have the tollways linking around the city as we do in Bangkok- just the godawful EDSA - Manilas answer to the M25 at peak hour - but all <deleted> day!

i hereby nominate a rule, that just because some other crap hole in asia is worse, it doesnt make it acceptable in bangkok.

[PoodMaiDai]

Sorry, you can't fix stupid.