Case study

Khyndai Lad junction: from concept to ribbon-cutting in 14 months

How one of the city's worst T-junctions was redesigned — and what we'd do differently next time.

PMU, Engineering Wing

Shillong Smart City Limited · 15 Jul 2026, 11:44 am IST · 7 min read

Khyndai Lad — the junction outside the IGP's office — used to be where Police Bazaar's morning rush went to die. Three uncoordinated signal phases, no pedestrian refuges, and a drainage gully running diagonally across the southbound approach. Average wait time at 09:15 in 2024: 142 seconds. Average wait time today: 58 seconds.

What we changed

Four arms, all rebuilt. Pedestrian refuges on every arm, raised at footpath level. Signal control replaced with an adaptive controller that talks to the engine and pulls priority for buses tagged on Route 1 and Route 5. A real-time information display added on the southbound side because, frankly, the queue was going to be there sometimes and people deserve to know how long it'll be.

What worked

Adaptive signals — switching from fixed-time to adaptive control on a real Indian junction is non-trivial. We used the engine's per-arm vehicle counts as the primary detector input, with the new ICCC cameras as a verification layer. Stable in three weeks, fully tuned in eight.

Phasing the works — we kept three of the four arms open at all times. The construction queue was painful but the city kept moving.

Public diary — we posted weekly construction updates on /plan/p-001 with photos. Public comments halved between week 4 and week 12. Transparency is cheaper than complaint resolution.

What we'd do differently

Talk to the bus operator earlier. MTC asked for pre-emption, not just extended green, and we weren't able to retrofit it. We are now — at additional cost.

Don't underestimate drainage. Half our delay was rebuilding a 60-year-old gully we'd hoped to keep.

Show the public a 3D model, not a plan. Our consultation drawings were technical. We've started doing concept renders by default for the next three projects.

The numbers

| Metric | Before | After |

|---|---|---|

| AM peak avg wait (s) | 142 | 58 |

| PM peak avg wait (s) | 168 | 71 |

| Pedestrian crossing time (s) | 22 | 14 |

| Bus on-time % | 64% | 78% |

The work cost ₹18.4 crore and took 14 months. It will pay back, in time saved alone, in roughly 22 months. Nobody designs a junction for the payback period — but it doesn't hurt that it pays back.

— PMU, Engineering Wing

Posted 15 Jul