Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt aims to ease traffic congestion in Bangkok within one year.
He plans to introduce an intelligent traffic management system and will set up a joint working group to study the possibility of introducing it by next summer.
Speaking after a meeting with the Traffic Police Division (TPD), Mr Chadchart said the working group will consist mainly of officials from the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), TPD and the Ministry of Transport.
Over 30 organisations will join hands with the group including the Mass Rapid Transit Authority (MRTA), Bangkok Mass Transit Authority and the Expressway Authority of Thailand, he said.
"Traffic congestion is an urgent issue. That's why we're here today discussing it," he added.
A joint traffic command centre already exists at the TPD's headquarters but it cannot respond well enough to handle the city's traffic problems, Mr Chadchart said.
BMA officials will be transferred to work at the centre to coordinate efforts in the event of floods, trees downed by storms and similar incidents, which are the responsibility of the BMA, he said.
In the case of a broken BMTA bus blocking traffic, the BMA will promptly coordinate its removal from traffic lanes, he said.
Executives of the BMA and TPD will now meet once a month to review their efforts to improve Bangkok's traffic woes and discuss future measures, he said.
As IT has become a part of people's daily life, only about 100 of more than 50,000 security cameras operated by the BMA are being used for traffic management purposes, Mr Chadchart said.
He believes one of the key factors hindering the improvement of Bangkok's traffic management is that the traffic flow at major intersections is still manually controlled by traffic police who are not updated on traffic conditions in connected areas.
The intelligent traffic management system will help plug this gap and improve the efficiency of the traffic command centre as a whole, he said.
