Bangalore City Traffic Management Through CCTV Cameras At Junctions

One of my post on VoiCE was about the need of #-Link-Snipped-#. In a country like India with a huge population constituting heavy traffic and narrow roads the implementation of variable automated traffic control system becomes even more necessary. We already have automated traffic control system in most of the parts of the country but Variable automated traffic control system is still not implemented yet. Variable automated traffic control systems make use of traffic cameras which not only help regulate the traffic lights but also help the police to catch the law breakers.


Image credit: economic times

Bangalore police have put these cameras into use for the latter part of the work (and also trying to implement it for the former). In 2007, the city was equipped with automated traffic control systems which brought relief to the drivers and a much greater relief to the traffic policemen. The usage of cameras at the traffic signals has further helped in controlling the traffic. The Traffic Management Centre at Bangalore (TMC) is the technologically equipped heart of the traffic control system of the city. Basanna Bajanthri, a member of the managing centre who has worked for four years at the traffic signals controlling the vehicular traffic and also chasing the rash and drunkard drivers says, "We remotely monitor nearly 120 cameras put up at different junctions. When we see a violation at a signal, we zoom into the vehicle; capture images of its number plate and slap a fine on the registered owner of the vehicle."

The person being fined can pay up the fine on the Bangalore city traffic police website or at one of the designated police stations. A Central data base is maintained to store the record of all the vehicular or traffic offenses in the city. The facility to check the pending fines and traffic updates on their mobiles have made it even simpler for the citizens. There are enforcement cameras at five other locations of the city along with the cameras at the junctions to locate over speeding vehicles. These vehicles are spotted and then the fine is sent to their registered address.

This is not it. The policemen on the roads also carry BlackBerry phones and bluetooth printers (linked to the Central data base). At the time of any law breaking the convict is checked for previous offences by entering the vehicle number. The offence is recorded into the Central data base and a printed receipt is provided to the fine payers. The police have also prepared a database, based on video analysis which it uses to control the duration of the green lights at the junction depending on the traffic. The offences recorded have jumped from 1.4 to 3.3 million, pre and post the enforcement of the traffic cameras. The system which began with a lot of criticism has finally managed to bring down the no. of fatal accidents from 957 to 816 and non-fatal accidents from 6591 to 5343 (duration 2007-2010), thus, proving to be a success.

Source: Economic times