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Awesome ! I am sure we can make more smarter suggestions and ideas to help them achieve our goal!

I always thought that traffice laws are state mandates - now I understand center controls everything in India.. I would wish States were given more liberty in framing certain laws to implement best practices followed worldwide.

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Some specific facts that we got to know yesterday –

All most all the road signs in Bangalore are being painted with world class synthetic paints (all of us should have seen them by now). In the last 3 months 50,000 sq meters of roads signs were painted and the target is 200,000 sq meters.

If one has observed traffic timers no longer work. I was of the impression that these were out of order. Mr Sood pointed that the actual reason was these timers have become redundant, as all the signals have now been changed into vehicle actuated mode from the fixed time mode.

The old sign boards are being thrown off and being replace with new sign boards which meet international standards (look out for those traffic sign boards with the “B-TRAC” sign on them).

Currently there are 176 traffic signals in Bangalore and all them managed from TMC (Traffic management center), in Ashoknagar Police Station. Around 20 new signals are being added every month. Total of 204 new signals will be added. All these signals are solar powered with six hours battery backup and also connected to the BESCOM power grid. They are connected to TMC via optic fiber cables managed by BSNL (this is something that worries me lot).

Cameras – two types are in use “Surveillance” cameras and “Enforcement” cameras. Surveillance cameras will be used for general surveillance. They have very good resolutions. They are all controlled from TMC. They have a range of 1.5 km and can be rotated 360 degrees.
Enforcement cameras are also called Red Speed Cameras. These cameras automatically take images (3 in nos) of vehicles which violate traffic signal or break speed limits. These images are communicated to the concerned person, who looks up the RTO database to find the address and traffic tickets are sent directly to the residence. These systems are just 3 months old, and eventually they will all be automated (the numbers will be automatically read from the images, mapped to the RTO database and tickets will be generated with out any manual interventions).

Currently there are 40 surveillance cameras and 5 enforcement cameras. The surveillance cameras will eventually be increased to 160 numbers. They were not sure of the enforcement camera numbers.

Mr Sudir was showing us the images of a junction. Interestingly we didn’t find any police personal at that junction and out of curiosity we pointed this to him. He sent out a message from his walkie talkie and magic, the traffic policeman was at the junction with in seconds.

I am surprised the main stream media has not reported on all this. I am sure that traffic violators will be more careful next time, if they know that someone is watching them.

Facts apart, Mr Sood was were welcoming and regretted that he had to stop the meeting in just half and hours time. He asked us to come again so that we could talk more. Infact he had some plans in mind for Praja.

We are trying to get information from TMC on how much is the cost for each camera. What is the revenue that is generated from them (from fines), how many days does it take for the camera investment to break even (!!!), how many traffic tickets have been give out by the system, when the system will be fully automated, etc.

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http://picasaweb.google.com/rithesh.rg/Praja

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There's not much that has not been covered between Pranav and Rithesh. The take home as far as I am concerned, after the meet, is the definite feel that we finally seem to have a platform through which we all can have a say in the goings on, particularly when we have as proactive an officer as Mr Sood at the helm.

At the Traffic Management Centre, I got a close look at the Sony World junction (in Koramangala) - boy, never again am I going to risk violating any rule there, or, for that matter, anywhere, since more and more junctions are getting covered under the surveillance scheme. Well, I am very much a law abiding driver. But, on the fatal Friday (25th), at around 1.30 noon, I was stopped by the traffic police for taking the left at the Sony World junction (coming from Indiranagar side), supposedly after the lights had turned red (there's no automatic left there). The police lot were very polite, and I paid up Rs 100/- without a murmur.

I mentoned this to Mr Sood, and complimented him for the fact that his men were now beginning to stop car drivers also, even grey-haired, which had generally not been the case so far. When I guggested to him that his people should be targeting bigger offences, and charging higher, is when he stated that the law did not provide for charging heavier fines. As to the matter of targeting bigger offences, we will take up subsequently.

The Sony World junction signaling system has a certain defect, which was partly the cause of my commiting the violation. I have since studied this and shall try to have it rectified through the TMC.

Muralidhar Rao

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First up, Mr Sood knew Praja, and has been reading some of the posts here. His description of us was a 'group blog', and I took the opportunity to tell him that blog is our front, we want to be more than that, and the stress is on constructive and fact based insights etc etc etc (you get the idea of our 2 minute pitch)

He said he wanted a longer meeting with us. The time we preferred (morning hours, he had suggested afternoon 2pm) meant that we'd get only 30 mins. Next meeting should be in the afternoon we promised, and he said he will be able to give us more time then.

He told us about his mandate and his challenges. Summary of his description was (we know this, and have talked about it on the website), he has to do the best he can with the resources he has. He has gone around the developed world and seen things there, and he himself knows and feels the need for a lot of what we say. Contrary to what many think, there is not a whole lot that he can change himself. He went on to give an example of fine amounts. There have been suggestions asking the amounts to be raised (all fines are more or less in the range of Rs 100). But he said that he doesn't have the power to effect that change. Its a central government thing (amounts fixed via Central government's motor vehicles act). This talk reminded me of our meeting with BMTC where we asked about Bus Bays, and Mr Tripathy had said - India Road Congress's standards don't include provision for a bus bay, so one has to go change those standards first.

Anyway, we told him we know this stuff a bit, understand that his jurisdiction and authority is limited, and less than what people perceive it to be. We told him that we want to explain the details of this aspect to all via our website/community. We said and he agreed that media doesn't cover or highlight this aspect of their job. Personally, I do agree. Before we criticize, we must understand the workings, and figure the real party or parties the criticism should be addressed to.

We expressed a lot of interest in BTRAC . Actually, we didn't have to. He was very proud of the things his deptt has been doing as part of BTRAC. We asked him how to keep in touch with all BTRAC work, we only have KRDCL tenders and limited media reports to go by. He said they are constantly updating Traffic Police website to expose BTRAC status, and he can always tell us as and when we ask.

Some of the BTRAC things he mentioned are known to us, a lot is not. Thermoplastic paintings on road to mark the lanes, standard road signs (work is on), 170+ vehicle actuated traffic signal systems, 40 centrally controlled live cameras on major junctions, 5 high speed violation recording cameras, lot more traffic lights and some more. All of this is work in progress, as in, there is more to come.

At the end of our meeting, he arranged for us to go and see his Traffic Management Center. so we drove off to Ashok Nagar police station, and were introduced to sub inspector Mr R Sudhir. He showed us the cool stuff. 40 live cameras, with controls to zoom (we could clearly see the license plates), and pan (direction of sight). Mr Sudhir passed us on to Mr M Arun from BEL, who told is about the traffic lights. BEL has installed vehicle triggered lights at 174 (thats a big number, I was surprised) traffic junctions in Bangalore. These are special signals that are driven by a magnetic sensor. Sensor changes the signal from green to red if no vehicle passes for, say 5 seconds. Or, the signal turns green only when a vehicle is sensed to be present.

Arun also told us about the synchronized signals. Forgot the number, but there are some 'synchronized corridors' where, lights are turned green one by one in such a way that if you drive at prescribed speeds, you will get all green (or all red, depending on your luck).

30 mins with Mr Sood, and 45 mins at the TMC, we learnt a lot of things we didn't. Was nice meeting them all, and I am sure we can build a working relationship with Mr Sood. He would like us to understand their operations and constraints, and expose their workings to all. If we provide suggestions that recognize their constraints and situation, I don't see why he won't be game. But he said one thing that we must understand. He gets suggestions aplenty, 100s a day via email itself! And a lot of things he gets are common sense. So here is our chance, understand them well, and suggest smart stuff, and not the common and obvious.

Forget suggestions etc. Lets just meet him and his dept folks a bit more, and build on our understanding of how they work and deal with our disorganized city's traffic. Rest will follow automatically.

Here is a quote that stuck. The most common request he gets is for speed bumps. Mr Sood said, "everyone wants one speed bump next to his house, but no bumps anywhere else in the city" :)

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