CUMTA plans Rs 146.7 crore data platform to coordinate Chennai road projects
The Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) is planning to launch a Rs 146.7 crore project to consolidate transport and road data from more than 30 government departments into a single connected system. The initiative, which aims to tackle road chaos and coordinate infrastructure projects, will be rolled out in three stages, beginning in the older, central parts of Chennai.
Consulting firm KPMG prepared the detailed project report (DPR) for the project. The new platform will bring together data from various agencies, including the traffic police, Metro Rail, the bus corporation, Metro Water, and Tangedco, replacing the current practice of departments maintaining separate records.
The project consists of six components that will function as a shared data platform. It will consolidate maps, road details, water and power line locations, and public transport routes into one unified system. Additionally, a coordination tool will allow departments to plan and track infrastructure projects jointly instead of working independently.
Before drafting the plan, the consultant held discussions with all 31 involved departments to assess their data and readiness to share it. CUMTA officials also visited Singapore to study a comparable system currently in operation there.
According to official sources, agencies such as CUMTA, Metro Rail, and the Greater Chennai Corporation are well-prepared to integrate with the new system. However, local traffic police units and some smaller municipal bodies will require more preparatory work.
The platform is designed to connect with existing departmental data rather than generating new data of its own, meaning it will not replace or duplicate current systems.
The report also benchmarked Chennai’s plan against road-digging management systems used in Delhi, Bengaluru, Kerala, and other states. It found that no other Indian city currently combines all the features Chennai is proposing, which include the automatic flagging of conflicts between departments and the routing of traffic police approvals through the same system.
The final draft of the DPR is scheduled to be discussed by a review committee next week before it is submitted to the government for approval.
