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Hat mounted camera - gadget for Traffic Police
Written By silkboard - 19 April, 2011
Traffic Bangalore suggestion technology Fines BTP Transportation Enforcement
Bangalore Traffic Police loves technology, and for good reason, because tech helps them 1) reduce corruption and 2) get more enforcement done from their small troop of 2000 cops. Here is another tech solution for them to take their camera based enforcement to the extreme.
As on date, Bangalore Traffic Police (BTP) mounts cameras on many traffic lights, and uses media (pic, video) from these cameras to issue signal violation tickets to motorists. This concept can be taken forward using hat mounted mobile cameras and 3G data connection. Here are the details:
- Traffic cops wear special hats (or belts, or shoulder vests - basically a "wearable" thing) that have camera mounted on them. There would also be a simple button, either on the hat, or gesture based (virtual button - shake your head to press it), or wireless button on cops hand to activate the camera
- Camera points in the direction of the cop's eyesight. Pressing the activate button makes the camera take a picture (or series of 10 pictures, or a short video, matter of design)
- Immediately after taking the picture (or video), the media is uploaded to a centralized location.
- At this centralized location, operators (would be cops themselves) would see the media (pic or video), spot the violations in them, and issue tickets.
- Tickets are then sent to the violators via mail (like it happens today)
That is it. This way, the cop at the spot gets to increase productivity (can spot 2-3 violations a minute around any junction for sure when on the hunt), and since the ticket is issued at a remote location, and picture/video always uploaded directly, without any mediation from the cop, chances of harassment (on the spot haggling with violator) are minimal.
Last time we looked at traffic ticket stats, tickets per cop per day was a paltry 10 or 12 if I recall right. With "wearable computing" or "mobile eye" technology based approach, that could easily go as high as 30-40 a day.
The tech isn't that expensive. Any smart phone with decent camera and single-day long battery life would do. Special orders in bulk (by few city's traffic police pooling in) could get some companies to make special purpose devices. Data connection (for instant upload) would be via 3G, which is already available in and around the city. And traffic police already knows how to spot violations in pictures and videos. they would just have scale at the back end (their Traffic Management Center or TMC).
Any glitches? There are some. 1) If using cheaper mobile phone type cameras, nights would be a problem. 2) Will be tough to get good pictures of speeding vehicles, again a camera quality issue. And 3) last, we know that Traffic Police / RTO databases keep outdated or wrong addresses (many ticket doesn't reach the motorist). We hear that they are working to address this.
COMMENTS
Video /Audio recording device mounted on key bunch
psaram42 - 19 April, 2011 - 08:47
I was trying to get one Video /Audio recording device mounted on a key bunch for recoding in meetings we attend. Some of my friends have got such devices from China. These are being used to record land dealings in Bangalore quite often.
This will facilitate writing accurate / factual praja reports too.
silkboard - 20 April, 2011 - 03:19
Since the actual traffic offence would be determined at the TMC, Traffic police can "outsource" the job of spotting violations to "volunteers". Volunteering wardens would be given a police-certified "hat" (aka instant upload camera), they would snap, cops at TMC would issue tickets.
SB, that's really a win-win and genuine suggestion
dvsquare - 20 April, 2011 - 05:04
@SB,
That's really a wonderful suggestion of outsourcing the job of spotting violations to the traffic wardens, volunteer citizens etc etc. Because, in general if wardens try to touch upon anything while trying to help traffic police, they get critical reviews and feedbacks which are mostly negative. Same like our politicians are fearing from Lokpal bill, they are trying their best to derail that, in the same way, traffic offenders fears the Traffic wardens and they come out against all these citizen activities in traffic-policing. But this seems to be a good option where volunteers and wardens are just submitting the proofs, its all TMCs issuing tickets, I mean, noone will have any objections to that, or I should say, noone will have any valid ground to object that.
I like the idea.
Deepak
Cops taking picture would not help much
dvsquare - 20 April, 2011 - 05:17
@Rackstar
In my opinion, cops taking photos won't help much, because most of them are more interested in sitting in some shade, a little far from junction, catch hold of a few offenders and try to issue tickets to few and try to get bribe from a few, thus getting revenue to police dept and to their pockets. I have seen at many places, 2-3 high level cops sit on their bike near the signal and a constable cop try to maneuver traffic (un-jam the traffic jams), so, in those situations those 2-3 humans could have help this single cop in traffic policing exercise instead of catching a few offenders, and preventing even the offenders to violate the rule. I mean, both things (policing & no-violation) could have achieved.
So, its better the job of "snap the violation" should be outsourced and later TMC issue tickets. We can track the number of tickets issued, penalty taken etc from the TMCs and if need RTI can be used. This way we can bring transparency to the system, and lessen the corruption while catching the traffic offenders.
I have another idea, the citizen volunteers or the traffic wardens should be registered with TMC, so that only registered people can send the photos. And there should a nominal registration fees for the wardens, so that only people interested in the service will anyways come ahead and do the job. I mean, you should pay a nominal amount to give the service, so as not to dilute the whole process.
Deepak
rackstar - 20 April, 2011 - 05:03
It is better to take snaps from their blackberry camera they already have than on hat. If camera on hat where will be the camera button to take snap? Those who escape when police stop can be taken pic and uploaded to central server. More than all these it should be made compulsory that each cop takes at least 5 pics every day and upload to server and this should help lot.
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