Two simple things to ease the ordeal on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway

The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is a high-speed corridor that connects these two important cities of Maharashtra, and while it has been serving its purpose well, it seems to have been riddled with its share of problems time and again.

Once again, recently (Feb 21, 2016),an accident caused major disruption of vehicular movement leading to a major traffic snarl stretching for over 4 km, which took over 5 hours to clear up!

Jammed Mumbai-Pune Expressway, via TOI

And, then there was another one yesterday (Feb 27, 2016).

While much has been written about and said in the news, there doesn't seem to be a clear way out of the mess when such a situation does arise.

Sure, the expressway has eased the travel between the two metros and continues to offer a pretty comfortable and convenient mode of road transport all these years.

Two things which could be considered, to simplify things and ease the burden, especially during such unfortunate incidents would be:

1. Introduce a way for commuters to know the status of the traffic well in advance so they can make a choice whether to get onto the expressway or not.
Specifically, toll booths and rest areas should prominently display the status of the traffic along the expressway to inform them of the type, and density (low, medium, high) of the traffic. In case of known incidents, indicating the estimated time for clearing, and/or recommendations can be very helpful to avoid pile ups for miles.

2. In addition to, or besides the means to pass on information as above, regular updates via a radio channel would also help people make better and informed choices.
In fact, one of the grouses of the corridor is the problems faced by commuters at either end, where traffic within each city is usually more troubling at some well known spots (eg. Panvel, Sion, Wakad, etc). Having some information with regards to this as one approaches the cities can go a long way to ease traffic woes, not to mention the saving of time and fuel burnt by the hundreds of vehicles.

A half-hourly regular update could go a long way in managing the situation in times like these, without overburdening the existing resources or infrastructure.