Tanzania Roads Agency (Tanroads)has installed 150 vehicles counting machines in major roads to collect important data to assist the agency on accurate budget planning.
The machine--Inductive Loop Traffic Counters--will collect traffic data to enable Tanroadto make accurate budget on maintenance and road expansions plus quality of a road to be constructed based on heavy or light traffics.
The agency, before going digital, used to count vehicle on roads manually--a setup which is neither accuracy nor consistence.
They also used to count vehicle passing their road network of 11,186 kilometres up to last December only in 12 hours of daylight. The machine will collect vehicles' weight digitally.
Tanroads' Road Asset Management SystemManager Eng Musa George told 'DailyNews' that the machine will assist them to now to get accurate data of passing vehicles 24 hours, seven days a week digitally.
"The machines will help design appropriate roads and allocate proper monetary resources per particular area using these accurate data," Eng George said yesterday:
"Those roads with a great number of vehicle activities will get a big slice of budget on maintenance and road expansion."
The machine costs some 10m/- each have been distributed to almost all regions but the number of each area depending with the number tarmac roads.
The current 150 machines are used for pilot project before analysed and if needed more will be deployed to all tarmac roads under the agency Jurisdiction.
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"The automation will not only cut costs by removing manpower but also increase data collection efficiency," Eng George said.
Inductive loops are used in signal detection and work like a metal detector. Once a vehicle drives over a loop sensor the loop field change which allows the detection device to detect the presence of an object--mainly a vehicle. And in traffic detection are often used in combination with axle sensors to collect classification data
The machine distribution depends on largeness of tarmac road network where Dar es Salaam and Arusha got nine devices each while Katavi got the least--only three.
In Dar the machines were installed along Nyerere Road immediately after completing Mfugale flyover towards the airport's left hand side and another along Sam Nujoma road near Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA).
Tanroads said the member of public and transporters should not worry about the machines since are for tallying cars and not for measuring speeds.
