Binoy Valsan

Bengaluru

R Hitendra

Brigade Road

HOW IT WORKS:

WHERE THEY ARE INSTALLED:

Chalukya Circle

Adugodi

ASC Junction

PESIT Junction

Shantinagar

Yelahanka

The average Bengalurean motorist’s pet habit of speeding up while approaching a traffic junction and jumping the red signal is well-known. They have ridden their luck so far. But not anymore! Such violators will be instantly ‘spotted’, and in just a few seconds a challan (e-challan) will be generated for the errant motorist to be fined.The city traffic police are installing highly sophisticated camera systems attached to the traffic signals that automatically activate when the red signal comes on. They start recording sharp video (and static) images of the junctions, capturing all the vehicles in their range. The registration plates of vehicles jumping the red signal, or even those who cross the stop line and come to a halt on the zebra crossing (by the way, that’s the one with broad black-and-white stripes, meant for pedestrians to cross), will be captured by the automatic cameras and relayed back to the main server in text format.In just a few seconds, the system will generate an e-challan with the registered vehicle owner’s name and details from the respective RTO’s database, based on which the violator will be charged.Basically, from now on, the careless, rash-driving, negligent and care-a-hang-for-rulesdriver will have no way to escape violation of traffic signal discipline.Which means, there is a fair likelihood of a single driver getting fined multiple times in a day, because, the city traffic police have already installed such cameras at 10 busy junctions across the city. As of now, 34 cameras have been installed and are operational from October 17.Earlier the traffic police used to deploy their personnel at the control room to manually monitor the older camera feeds to spot vehicles violating rules and then identify the registration plates to generate the e-challans. That has changed. No more errors, and no more scope for letting the errant motorists go scot-free. The city traffic earlier booked around 2,000 violators daily at these signals; but now, they are issuing 6,000 challans after the installation of these new cameras. “We identified 10 major traffic junctions and installed these systems. We will now be able to ensure that all those who violate signal discipline at these points are booked. That will act as a strong deterrence for other motorists,” said, additional commissioner of police (Traffic).“The cameras have sensors which detect when the red light turns on or off. There is also an in-built loop in the system that calculates the speed of the vehicle based on the motion captured in the video. The installation is also done in a strategic manner as per the system requirement to ensure that all vehicles that cross the stop line and halt are also booked,” said a senior city traffic police official. The cameras are also installed at thejunction on MG Road, but sources in the department said it will become fully operational in the coming days. The cost of the project is around Rs three crore and the contract was handed over to a Hyderabad-based firm.This is the first time RLVD cameras are being used for traffic management in the city; but it has already been adopted in other major Indian cities. “We have seen a considerable increase in the number of challans issued for signal violations and rash driving at these points. However, as in the case of conventional challans, serving them becomes a challenge when out-state vehicles are involved,” said another official. The fine amount for vehicles crossing the stop line is Rs 100. The penalty for jumping the red light is Rs 300 for two wheelers and Rs 400 for cars.All the ten traffic signals have an overhead traffic camera and three-lane cameras, bundled with Red Light Violation Detection (RLVD) and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) features. These cameras are automatically activated when the signal turns red and captures video and static image of vehicles crossing the stop line or speed ahead without stopping for the red signal. The registration plate info of the violating vehicle is converted into text and sent to the server at the traffic command centre.The system is linked to the RTO database and an automatic e-challan is generated to the registered owner for the specific violation. Video and photographic evidence of each violation is also available for each vehicle along with the speed, date and time of violation.l Ejipural Electronic Cityl KR Puraml Brigade Road junction MG Road