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Indonesia deploys drones to monitor traffic

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EDO: Nigerian Army goes high tec, deploys drones to monitor poll

Indonesia is harnessing technology to tackle traffic chaos during the annual mass exodus before the Muslim Eid holiday, when the potholed roads of overpopulated Java become clogged with millions of slow-moving cars and crashes are frequent.

Cities in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country empty every year at the end of the holy month of Ramadan as people head to villages to celebrate Eid with their families.

This trip is an annual ritual known locally as “mudik” that transforms journeys of a few hundred kilometres (miles) into 24-hour odysseys.

The crush is particularly acute on Java, a crowded island that is home to more than half of Indonesia’s 250 million people.

Hundreds of new vehicles are hitting the road every day as the economy booms, but scant investment means many routes remain as they have for years — narrow, ageing roads snaking through mountainous terrain.

This year, a series of new technological tools are being rolled out in an attempt to ease the traffic chaos.

In Jakarta — an overcrowded, grim metropolis that suffers notorious traffic jams which only get worse in the run-up to Eid — police have deployed drones for the first time this year to monitor traffic as it floods out of the city.

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The unmanned aerial vehicles whizz high above the outskirts of the city, which has a population of about 10 million, with images relayed in real-time back to a traffic-monitoring centre where police can make quick decisions as issues arise.

“If there’s bad traffic, if there’s an accident, we’ll be able to see it from above,” Jakarta police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal told AFP.

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