State Highways to Come Under Camera Surveillance Soon

April 7, 2014

By Express News Service – KOCHI

 

After installing high power cameras in various National Highways in the state, the Motor Vehicle Department would now procure another 500 mini cameras to maintain surveillance on the State Highways. Police officials said that the tender for the mini cameras has been floated and it would be installed within a month’s period.

According to senior officials in the Motor Vehicle Department, the majority of surveillance cameras are fitted on the state’s National Highways. “The number of cameras in the State Highways were comparatively low and over speeding incidents were high here. There are several highways in the state, which are more wider than the National Highways. In these roads, there is a high intensity of traffic and many accidents reported. So we decided to install mini cameras which can detect the speed of the vehicle and facilitate carrying out enforcement activities as well,” a senior official said. Motor Vehicle Officials said that the newly inaugurated control room to monitor vehicles along the highway from Cherthala to Manjeshwaram has been a huge success. “More than 300 drivers are being booked daily using these cameras. With the installation of the new system, we can successfully control the speed of inter-state luxury buses plying in the night,” an official said.

Some of the night buses are found over-speeding at more than 90 kilometres. The installation of the cameras has made the drivers more wary. As a result, they don’t accelerate and drive cautiously on the NH. If the driver is caught for the first time, he is let off with a fine. If this becomes a regular occurrence, then stringent action including cancelling of the license would be taken.

A state-of-the-art control room to monitor vehicles along the highway from Cherthala to Manjeshwaram was inaugurated at Kakkanad a few weeks back. The control room monitors feed from 147 observation cameras set up along the highway.

At present 57 cameras have been set up for the purpose. Apart from the over-speeding and signal violation, the use of mobile phones and not wearing helmet are also liable for punishment. The cameras also help in booking riders and drivers carrying more people than the required capacity, violation of lane traffic, manipulated and unauthorised registration plates and dangerously loaded vehicles.

 

Source- http://www.newindianexpress.com/

CCTV watch makes roads safer

November 13, 2013

Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay, TNN

 

KOLKATA: You may not know it, but you are on camera on virtually every traffic crossing in the city. The end-to-end CCTV surveillance launched on November 1 is revolutionizing how Kolkata Police prevent crime and tackle traffic jams.

TOI brings you three such instances where CCTV watch helped police to intervene quickly and take effective action.

At Esplanade, a young girl looked terrified as she tried desperately to escape two stalkers. None of the passersby had noticed her plight, but a camera mounted high above did. Officers from the Lalbazar HQ quietly passed on the girl’s exact location to a team on the ground. Within seconds, two policemen showed up and asked her if she needed any help. The harassers were caught by surprise and had no way to escape.

SN Banerjee Road and Lenin Sarani were choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic. But the parallel Creek Row and Ganesh Avenue were relatively free. A senior officer, who could see footage of the gridlock on his tablet while on the move, ordered vehicles to be diverted to Ganesh Avenue-Creek Row. Commuters may have wondered how traffic started flowing smoothly. If you were there, now you know the secret.

A car sped dangerously past Gariahat crossing, forcing pedestrians to scamper to safety. A sergeant on Gurusaday Road was alerted. As the car sped on dangerously, he drew iron-barricades across the road and stood firm, forcing the car to slow down. There was no escape. The driver – a minor – was booked.

The optical-fibre enabled surveillance network has given Kolkata Police an edge that was unthinkable even a few years ago. There is hardly any crossing that has not been covered, say police. “It was a challenge to us to bring 200 square kilometer of the city police jurisdiction under camera surveillance. We succeeded. Now each of 25 traffic guards is also monitoring their respective territories,” said special commissioner (II) Soumen Mitra.

Impressed with its extensive cover, chief minister Mamata Banerjee feels confident that will reduce crimes against women.

Mitra said that the cameras are capable of transmitting high definition (HD) pictures and are effective in low-light conditions as well. Moreover, senior officers can get the feed of any camera at anytime on move. This will help them assess a situation and take action on the basis of the real-time footage.

It’s also a boon to traffic management. The city has perpetually struggles with limited road space and traffic management is getting more and more difficult because of rising number of private cars.

The police tried to solve it with ‘area traffic control’ but it could not be fully utilized because of the wrong choice of technology, said an officer.

The CCTV surveillance system has come as a shot in the arm for the traffic cops. It gives police a view of the whole area to check for roads that are clogged and roads that can be used to ease the logjam. “This system actually facilitates us to strike an equitable distribution of traffic by making minor diversions,” said a traffic police officer.

The traffic police want to take it a step further by enabling the cameras to zoom into number plates. They want to install software for automatic motor-registration recognition. “This system will not only capture the registration number of a vehicle but also dig out details of the owner from the database and pin-pointing the exact place of offence with latitude and longitude coordinates,” said Mitra.

 

Source-http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

« Previous Page