KUCHING: The Sarawak Ministry of Transport (MOTS) will integrate smart traffic lights through the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS), aimed at improving transport efficiency and safety across the city.

Its Minister, Dato Sri Lee Kim Shin said that these intelligent traffic signals, driven by real-time data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, enable adaptive signal timing to ease traffic congestion, shorten travel durations and bolster overall safety. 

“The success of this plan relies on strong teamwork with city councils, transport agencies and law enforcement.

“In addition, the intelligent traffic signals will integrate with the ART (Autonomous Rapid Transit) Transit Signal Priority (TSP) to enhance and coordinate the safety for the ART vehicles with all other road users, where signal priority (Right-of-Way) will be given to ART vehicles,” he said. 

He said this during his ministerial winding-up speech at the 19th Sarawak State Legislative Assembly (DUN) Session on Monday.

Dato Sri Lee added, a total of 325 traffic light junctions in Sarawak with varying numbers managed by the Public Works Department (JKR) and the city councils such as Kuching North (DBKU) and Kuching South (MBKS), with 122 junctions linked up to the Sarawak SCATS server managed by the Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) as of April 2024. 

“We are presently engaged in the phased integration of an additional 203 junctions into the Sarawak SCATS server,” he said. 

The Senadin Assemblyman further stated that consolidating the system enables seamless access to system data, traffic volume information and fault detection records from a singular server source, streamlining operational oversight and analysis. -UKASnews