BP Highway Emergency Information System down for six years

The emergency information system (EIS) set up on the road section by the BP Highway sub-project is in limbo for six years.

The sub-project has also not been able to update the weather-related information on the digital display board installed at Dhulikhel, the starting point of the BP Highway (Dhulikhel-Sindhuli-Bardibas) for about six years.

Such boards had been kept at various locations of the highway, including at Dhulikhel, with the objective of providing information regarding the real-time situation of the highway.

The Department of Roads said the EIS technology of the highway could not be continued.

Department's Deputy Director General and Foreign Assistance Implementation Division Chief, Ram Hari Pokharel said Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) which constructed the road installed the system but it could not be continued and updated due to the shortage of technicians required for operating this technology as well as other technical issues.

"We could not continue operating the EIS for some years due to lack of skilled technicians and owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. We will now hold discussions as to how this system can be operated," he said.

The EIS was installed aimed at making highway travel easier and convenient. Physical infrastructure, as well as other structures related to information technology, were constructed and managed at various places along the highway six years back for setting up EIS which would make information on the condition of the highway accessible on mobile and website.

Not only this, a plan had been devised so that one could travel by also looking up the information on the website and on the electrical boards placed at various spots alongside the highway.

The sub-project which was set up at that time for the operation and repair and maintenance of the highway developed the EIS. As per the plan, information regarding rainfall, flood, landslide and other natural disasters, and accidents on the highway would be readily available on mobile and the website.

The sub-project had planned to install technology so that this same information could be accessed on the Highway website and on the information board at Koteshwor, Dhulikhel and Bardibas. Digital notice boards have also been installed at these three locations.

However, only general information is available on the notice boards while information on the condition of the road, natural disasters and accidents are not found in them.

It is said Softwell Pvt Ltd, an engineering software developer firm, had also developed the 'system' for the website and the EIS along with mobile application based on android.

The project says this system was developed in order to make this highway a model roadway of Nepal.

The automatic rainfall observation system set up under this system at four places would continuously measure the rainfall and send information to the data centre located at the Department of Roads. The data centre would be kept at the sub-project office at Thapathali, Bhaktapur, the Department of Roads office at Bardibas and the District Development Committee office in Sindhuli.

Data and information related to disasters and accidents continually fed to the data centre through the EIS would be automatically updated in mobile, website and the road information board via GPRS medium. This information would be available on the LED-display board both in Nepali and English language.

Arrangement for power supply through solar system was made at all the centres so that the 24-hour updating of information would not get interrupted due to power outage.