Integrated traffic control soon to trip up offenders

Integrated traffic control soon to trip up offenders
Deccan Herald

Thrilled that you got away with jumping the traffic signal or that you managed to escape the eyes of the cop while overspeeding? Well, for all of you with such ‘feats’ under your belt, things are going to be different soon.

Thrilled that you got away with jumping the traffic signal or that you managed to escape the eyes of the cop while overspeeding? Well, for all of you with such ‘feats’ under your belt, things are going to be different soon. The Bangalore traffic police, in the next couple of months, is going in for a completely automated enforcement system that would be online with a central server.

It would be different from the present automated system, driven by simputers where absence of online facility, connectivity and networking is a key issue.

HHCs


All sub-inspectors (traffic) will be given hand-held computers (HHCs) with wireless or blue-tooth printers, with which they will conduct spot inspections, check vehicles, issue challans and also give details of the past traffic offences on a printout. Traffic inspectors currently use simputers for filing charges, apart from the manual challans issued by the SIs.

Advantages

The latest technology will not only help the cops record traffic violations and penalise offenders on the spot but also give them a printout of their “history sheet”, if any, instantly. Issue of spot challans will make it mandatory on the offender to appear before the court and pay the fine.

“Now challans are sent through post with the result that only 25 per cent of the offenders pay the fine,” said Additional Commissioner (Traffic) M N Reddi.

The City traffic police issue on an average around 2,500 challans a day through the simputers, as per field reports of the constabulary, besides those issued by the manual system.

“With the new system in place, the number of challans will be twice as many,” he added.

“We don’t have an online system now. The simputers need to be synchronised every day and there’s no single database. We’ve islands of information that need to be put together. With the HHCs, we’ll have a database with a strong networking backbone,” said Mr Reddi. The current manual operations will get integrated in the new system, “which will enable us to act against repeat offenders”.

The traffic police will speak to some leading global HHC brands early next week, following which tenders will be issued.

“We’ll place an order for 300 gadgets at a cost of about Rs 75 lakh. It will take around 12 weeks to implement the project, including training of traffic police,” said Mr Reddi.