‘Software & Networking’ are synonymous with new age India, but we have no such support for our law enforcers!!!

Our techies help develop some of the finest technological marvels worldwide, yet what baffles me is the lack of it when it comes to traffic management in our country. There have been several pilots and tests conducted in the past, but no large scale deployments to brag home about. 3 major areas where technology can help:

• Automated traffic lights and pedestrian crossing
• Automatic system to document and penalize traffic breakers
• GPS based tracking system to track down high speed vehicles and those who jump signals

Before I delve deeper into the nuances of what I have listed above, let me reiterate 2 critical points that form the foundation of this article:

• Underlying Assumption: The successful implementation of all automation and collection of penalty depends on the assumption that there are still a host of officers who do not fall prey to the temptation that we subject them to. And I have no qualms in accentuating the word “we”
• A heart warming incident: One of my friends and I were driving back from the Airport after dropping one of our colleagues. He happened to jump the signal at MG Road and off came the policemen to penalize us for our uncivilized act. He spoke very kindly and drew our attention to the rate card he had in his hand specifying the fine for the mistake committed. It read INR 100 for jumping the signal. After verifying the license, he took out a PDA and then entered the mistake committed, vehicle and license details and then printed out a charge slip. He wished us good night and reminded us to drive safely. As much as I was ashamed of the mistake we just committed, I was delighted at the whole experience and professionalism at display. Something I can say with confidence that most of us have not been subjected to. I am sure many of you would even be surprised to read about this experience.
o In the past, many a policemen have subjected the common man to various levels of torture for a minor in-discipline. The ulterior motive of these acts were the benefits that came with such acts of “toture”, most of which were based on the ignorance of comman man and the fear factor around the uniform and position the latter had. Your “fee without receipt” varied based on how gullible you were. A year back, one of my cousins paid Rs 500 without receipt for jumping the signal. She was told that she jumped the signal, had shown in-discipline in not listening to the traffic police and so on and on and had to pay Rs 1,000 with a challan. However, he was ready to offer her a discount and charge her Rs 500 without receipt. Hmmmm… guess we have all seen shop-keepers who offer their products without bill at a lesser price as it does not include the value added tax component. This was a variant of that. Some of our traffic keepers made personal money from the traffic breakers in place of what should be going into the country’s exchequer.

Solutions

But, the large part of our traffic police who are committed to improving the traffic mess, can do with some much needed technical help in managing traffic.

Automated traffic lights and pedestrian crossing: (Learning from the west)

We do have automated traffic lights in some places in India, but these do not function at most times and are not coordinated, as a result of which travelers are subjected to numerous combinations as against some sustained period of free flowing traffic. Further, traffic lights are constantly tampered with by regional police officers who have their own formulas to traffic management. Some of them have shorter but more frequent signal shifts while some others let the traffic flow from one side for a sustained period of time before switching on to the latter. From experience, I can tell you that the former works far better in congested cities with smaller by-lanes as a longer wait clogs the by-lanes with vehicles and the commotion is further compounded by the peak morning/evening pedestrian population. Since the traffic at various points is manually stopped by the police to help the pedestrians cross, it creates further stops which are not picked up elsewhere. An automated traffic system, much like the west would go a long way in managing some of our traffic woes

• Re-schedule, automate and link traffic lights with pedestrian crossing based on zones
• Increase the height of road dividers so that people don’t cross roads at multiple points. Introduce more sky-ways for people to cross roads so as to not hamper traffic movement
• Pedestrian crossings with automated switches- When pedestrians approach a zebra crossing, they can press a button which would streamline traffic and provide for a zone when they can cross the road at a green light.

Automatic system to document and penalize traffic breakers

Like the western countries, we should also implement a system whereby drivers are penalized for their mistakes in various forms:

• On achieving “n” number of minor mistakes, the driver has to attend a refresher course or undertake some sort of charity work
• On achieving “n” number of major mistakes, a cancellation or suspension of license for a fixed tenure
• Categorization of mistakes based on the risk associated

To deploy the same however, we would need a serious commitment from the state governments by way of budgetary allocation in the creation of a centralized database and deployment of software and related hardware like PDAs with local police officers.

GPS based tracking system to track down high-speed vehicles and those who jump signals

GPS based tracking systems have reached high levels of sophistication in a very short period of time. These systems could be used to track down high speed vehicles and input on to local police stations. They could also be used to classify zones with higher rates of accidents. The Police could then implement additional transport management systems to track these high accident zones closer.

Instead of being at logger heads with the local governments and police force and pushing them to roll out more fly-overs, our IT honchos should look at contributing to easing our traffic mess with the help of their own core competency- software development and network management.