Delhi govt to set up 5,000 cameras for traffic management

The Delhi transport department is planning to install 5,000 cameras at junctions across the city as part of a project to integrate an Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) for the national capital, officials aware of the development said.

These cameras, the officials said, will be used for surveillance and issuing traffic challans, and will eventually be used for traffic and signal management and public announcements.

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The officials said that a tender was floated in January to hire an agency that can start installing the cameras and set up an Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC). However, the tender found no takers as the revenue sharing model was on a per challan basis. After making changes, the tender was floated again last week.

As per the new tender, the selected agency will have to set up cameras with an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system for 16 traffic violations — along with ICCC infrastructure — within three years, and will have to arrange for storage capacity to save all videos and data for the next five years.

Officials said that the system will be integrated with the government’s E-challan portal.

The initiative is part of Delhi’s road safety committee that is headed by the transport department and also has other members including the traffic police, PWD, education and health departments.

Currently, the Delhi Traffic Police have installed 329 cameras for red light violations, while the Delhi Police, NDMC and PWD have installed around 25,000 cameras at various locations across the city for surveillance. Meanwhile, the transport department uses existing cameras installed at petrol pumps to check for PUC violations.

According to officials from the transport department, the objective of ITMS is to reduce the number of traffic violations on Delhi’s roads by penalising offenders, thereby making the roads of Delhi safer for both pedestrians and motorists.

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“This will also help us in enforcement of special cases by monitoring vehicles during specific periods, such as during the implementation of the odd-even rule, or when certain vehicle categories are barred from plying when Grap restrictions are in place. Apart from issuing challans, ITMS will also help extensively in smart monitoring of traffic lights to ensure that waiting time at red lights is minimised based on traffic pressure,” an official said.

Experts said that though Delhi’s transport department has taken the initiative, it should be a collaborative effort with all related government agencies and ITMS should not be used only for penalising traffic violators. “ ITMS can also be useful in signal coordination to reduce congestion or for smooth passage of emergency vehicles and VIP movement. All aspects of traffic management should be used by installing ITMS,” said S Velmurugan, chief scientist and head of traffic engineering and safety division of Central Road Research Institute .