Deployment of new technology on the ground is always a challenge. India is taking a huge leap in terms of having advanced systems in various cities through the smart city mission. This sudden opportunity has brought in a lot of technological advancement; however, there is still a lack of knowledge about ITS systems in general.
The cities are not able to identify as well as quantify their requirements correctly, which sometimes lead to differences between expectations and reality. The operations of such systems need technically skilled personnel and traffic engineers. This critical concept is simplified by ITSPE. An innovation-driven company specialising in intelligent transport systems.
ITSPE being a technical company provide products, solutions, and services related to ITS and traffic engineering. In an exclusive interview with Insights Success, Mr. Ayush Agrawal, Chief Commercial Officer – ITSPE shares some insights about the dynamics of the company. Following are the highlights of the company:
Describe about your company/firm/profession in detail.
We offer ITS products for traffic management and control for highways, urban road networks and public transport management. We also offer ITS design and consultancy services, simulation modelling, custom R&D, and product development services. We are passionate about what we do. We will lend our expertise to understand, analyse, and offer solutions to mobility-related problems, however big or small, to private sector clients, and the government.
Our major offerings include Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS), Transit Management, Highways Traffic Management Systems (ATMS/HTMS), Mobility Management, Solid Waste Management, ITS Consultancy, and Simulation Modelling, etc. We have a strong base in India, having in-house software development, as well as R&D teams, which allow us to offer better solutions as per the requirements of the clients.
What inspired you to become a smart city solution provider?
We have been interested in bringing innovative solutions for ITS for a long time. We started with deploying our solutions in the UK where we provided customised traffic control systems for Southampton and East Sussex. We strongly believe that with efficient systems we can reduce congestion and improve the travel experience in cities. We also want to enhance the reliability and ease of usage for public transport.
However, the market in India was not really organised before the start of the smart city mission. The number of projects involving advanced ITS systems was limited. With the rollout of the Smart Cities Programme, a lot of cities and authorities were made aware of the various ITS systems and their impact on the day-to-day life of road users. In order to extend our outreach, we have aligned ourselves with most of the major Master System Integrators (MSI) and started offering our products for various smart cities. Our products have been used in multiple cities by many MSIs proving our credibility.
What kind of services do you provide to your clients?
We have worked on multiple projects such as ITS design consultancy for Expressways in Qatar, ATCS deployments in various cities in India, and HTMS/ATMS for highways, etc.
We have also worked as system integrators for several ATCS and HTMS projects where we have undertaken the entire deployment including all of the civil and electrical works, testing, and commissioning. ITSPE’s traffic engineering and operations teams provide customised traffic management strategies to our clients and operate our ITS systems on a day-to-day basis.
How was your firm/business affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and what measures did you take to shorten the damages, while helping your clients and maintaining the safety of your employees?
I don’t think Covid has spared any government-related sectors. Due to the sudden transfer of funds towards covid relief and lockdowns, there was a complete halt in ongoing projects as well as floating of new tenders. The billing cycles were severely impacted and not many smart city projects have been awarded in the last year. We have used this opportunity to strengthen our portfolio and increase our offerings to smart cities as well as highways. We enhanced our transit management product, Neptune, to better suit the Indian public transport needs.
We also resumed operations of our site teams adhering to all the safety protocols by taking special approvals to support our critical projects and established a work from home ecosystem for our software teams to support all the projects. We have now slowly started reopening our office with limited strength of vaccinated employees.
What would you like to advice the young generation of entrepreneurs and enthusiasts who want to become a smart city solution provider?
Our recommendation to all the enthusiasts out there is to think about the value addition of their product/service. We all should aim to solve an existing problem with the help of technology. The person should also think about the long-term usage and support services to enable cities to realise the full potential of the proposed systems and solutions.
Where do you see yourself in the future? Kindly tell us about your strategies for scaling your business.
ITSPE is on the path of having close to 1000+ traffic junctions in India in the next 1-2 years. We also expect to revolutionise the transit management market by offering a fresh approach by focusing on the overall management of public transport instead of providing bits and pieces solutions. We also expect to have close to 20-25 stretches of highway managed using our traffic management platform. ITSPE is also actively working on ITS consultancy/project management opportunities to enable the cities to deploy better ITS systems.
In addition to our continuous expansion in India, ITSPE is working with various partners to extend our products and services to European and other Asian countries. We expect to provide technically advanced solutions and ITS consultancy to these markets. We also plan to expand our transport modelling services by at least 150% in the next FY across Indian and international markets.
What is the current industrial scenario of smart city solutions?
A lot of smart cities have deployed several IT solutions, which have helped them greatly in enhancing their capabilities to tackle various day to day challenges. The integrated command control room has also helped cities to manage the covid situation efficiently by enabling monitoring of covid lockdowns, a helpline for covid, etc. A lot of cities have started reaping the benefits of deploying ICCC based solutions. In case of traffic management, there have been drastic changes in overall traffic rule compliances and reduction of traffic congestion at bottlenecks in many cities. It is a long journey to reach a stage where we reap out all the benefits possible by such ITS deployments, but we are taking giant strides in this direction.
