Yangon to fight congestion by upgrading almost all traffic lights

There’s an expensive plan to fight gridlock and improve road safety that actually sounds like it won’t be a complete waste of money.
 
The Yangon City Development Committee is planning on opening up bids for a $15.6 million project to overhaul the city’s dysfunctional traffic light system.
 
A total of 154 lights will be fitted with CCTV cameras (presumably to monitor road activity as well as violations) and linked to a network overseen by a control tower in Peoples’ Park, state media reported today.
 
They will also have backup power that will kick in during city outages, preventing the need for traffic police to man intersections (when there are traffic police available for those intersections, that is).
 
YCDC’s Secretary U Kyaw Soe explained the project to potential bidders on Tuesday, the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar reported. The “Design,  Installation and Commissioning of Yangon Comprehensive Traffic Control System” is expected to be finished within a year.
 
There are 188 traffic lights in the municipality of Yangon, according to the report, which said that 11 have already been upgraded with the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA.
 
Photo / Coconuts Yangon