Pune Officers To Catch Habitual Offenders With Blackberry

[savramesh 37]

Business Standard

Thursday, Apr 16, 2009

Imagine this situation. Girish Ranade (not his real name), a Pune resident, is caught breaking a red light. He takes out his license as asked, and is mentally prepared to shell out the required penalty.

What takes him aback, though, is the fact that traffic policeman tells him that his driving license is being confiscated since he is a habitual offender. Girish contests the claim. Non chalantly, the traffic policeman takes out his Blackberry and shows Girish a list of his previous offences.

Girish meekly submits, but is still perplexed. How could the policeman have known?

The traffic policeman simply entered the license number of Girish on the space provided for the same on the Blackberry screen which, in turn, contacted a backend server and the officer could obtain a list of details including previous offenses recorded for that vehicle, if any. Entering the vehicle number too would have yielded similar results.

Girish simply serves as a case in point for traffic offenders in Pune who will have to be on their guard henceforth. The police department has decided to arm all assistants sub-inspectors and above officers with Blackberry phones in the municipal and Pimpri-Chinchwad areas of the city.

These Blackberrys will be connected to a server back in the office of the department. Through this communication mechanism, a traffic police will have access to an entire database of vehicles registered in the city. The move is aimed at introducing traffic discipline and better equipping traffic officers on the field.

“We chose the Blackberry due to the QWERTY keyboard. This mechanism will work through the GPRS service. An officer can have access to the database with his phone. Currently, when he catches a traffic offender, he has no clue about the background of the owner or the vehicle which makes it difficult. Within almost four months when the Blackberrys will finally be operational the situation will get better,” DCP Traffic Manoj Patil told Business Standard.

The department will be spending close to Rs 40 lakh for the 100-odd devices that have been approved for the traffic police.

An electronic challan will replace the paper receipts that are issued for a vehicle at present. And, the records will be maintained in the server.

The next time the number is punched in, the previous records will appear. Apart from this, features like permit details, suspected persons’ list, repeated offenders’ list, stolen vehicles’ numbers etc will also be available at the touch of a button.

“Multiple data entries are possible in this device which will save a lot of time and manpower required to physically maintain all the records,” added DCP Patil. The University of Pune and Ministry of Science and Technology’s body Science and Technology Park is helping the traffic department develop this mechanism.

[P. K. Daga 3]

This is possible on erp software, Hll & many other companies are using this solution on blackberry

[CUPIDON 0]

Pune following Bangalore's footsteps. In bangalore its already in use for the last 4 to 5 months

[savramesh 37]

Does this move mislead them ? asking more bribe after knowing the history of the offender ? or public becomes more alert and start obeying rules ??

[niknam 0]

nothing moves without bribes and this will only give them licence for asking more bribes; in a country with so much poverty they should have invested that money to increase their salaries; these technologies will work in countries where the people are well fed and well paid; in our country it will be just another futile exercise; we always jump the gun in our decision making process and our leaders priorities are also a mess; look at our general elections to see the corruption levels;

[savramesh 37]

BlackBerry is weapon of choice for traffic cops

BANGALORE: At last, the IT city is moving into e-mode in traffic enforcement. Project BlackBerry started by the Bangalore traffic police in 2008 has now reached its final stage.

At a function near Ashoknagar police station on Wednesday, all traffic officers up to the rank of ASI were given BlackBerries and Bluetooth-supported printers. City police commissioner Shankar Bidari said the advantages of BlackBerries included a robust database of traffic offenders, real-time access to history of offences, enhanced punishment for habitual offenders, catching those who didn't bother to settle their traffic violation notices and a real-time Management Information System which monitors performance of officers, logs types of vehicles being penalised and category of offences and makes the information instantly available to traffic personnel.

Besides, there's no scope for manipulation (e.g. duplicate receipts and tampering of carbon paper) and pilferage of fines collected as well as recording the correct fine amount, he said. The BlackBerries can be used as standalones too, he added.

Additional Commissioner of Police (traffic & security) Praveen Sood said Phase II, which involves 370 BlackBerries and printers, has advanced and robust equipment with protective covers.

The initiative brings together all aspects of traffic policing and is capable of pulling out data on more than 2 million cases in less than 2 minutes, he said. It's backed by connectivity and data storage at the state data centre, which will soon be equipped with a redundancy plan also. Carbon paper and notice books will soon become part of history.

Violation Evidence Management System

Home minister V S Acharya launched the VEMS through which notices are being issued with the help of 160 surveillance cameras and five enforcement cameras used for traffic monitoring, regulation and enforcement. A large number of video-supported violation notices are sent to motorists.

Motorists can view the violation photo on the website by entering the notice number. Once seen, payment can be made through the website. Once payment is done, the photograph is automatically deleted from the database.

This technology was developed with the help of Mindtree. "This will lead to stricter action against violators. This facility, however, is available only for video-captured violations," he said.

No law & order problem: Acharya

V S Acharya denied there was any breakdown of law & order in the state. "We've asked for reports about the communal problem from the Shimoga and Hassan SPs. We're also getting reports regarding the attack on newspaper offices in Mangalore. Once we study the reports, we'll take action against the culprits,'' he added.

[savramesh 37]

After traffic cops, BlackBerry for RTO officials too

It’s now the turn of regional transport office officials to sport BlackBerry handsets. The office will soon implement the Traff-i-cop scheme of the traffic police, which had won the national award for technology recently. The move is aimed at providing officials information about any vehicle at their fingertips.

“The ‘Traff-i-cop’ scheme is being extended to the RTO as well. The same agency, which implemented the scheme for traffic police, will be carrying it out for us. As per the plan, all senior officials will be given BlackBerry handsets, by which they will be able to access data pertaining to any vehicle or a vehicle owner. By next week, all technicalities will be completed,” RTO Chandrakant Kharatmal said.

He said an officer would be able to verify whether a vehicle owner had paid the tax or not via the phone once the scheme was implemented. “In case of commercial vehicles, if we find that the vehicle is overloaded or that the vehicle is not fit, we can register an offence and also bring the matter to the notice of the traffic police authorities. So in all, it will bring in more discipline.”

[city02 63]

Rs. 40 lakhs for only 100 BB?

Sounds a bit expensive @ Rs. 40 k / phone...

maybe they should have gone with other QWERTY smart phones now available at Rs. 4-5 k instead

but i suppose its better than nothing

[aalok 442]

^ maybe Rs. 40 lacs for the complete project, which includes BB devices, database implimentation @ backend, training, etc..

can be good for state govt. to give order to sadikk bhai for BB 8830WE enabled with GSM BIS..

[::Hitesh:: 1,763]

I smell bad things here !

40Lakhs for 100 BBs

so 40K for one.

if we calculate 20 for original BB then 20K for software ...........,:Confuso:

logoki bhook kabhi khatam hi nahi hoti,,,, choor hai sab !!!

even in project even in pune roads !!!!

[manishashar 6]

Does this move mislead them ? asking more bribe after knowing the history of the offender ? or public becomes more alert and start obeying rules ??

Whatever can make public more aware and that leads to lesser offends, will lead to lesser fines / bribes. So public must follow rules to avoid fine / bribe.