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Bangalore Traffic Police’s B-TRAC project has helped in reducing road accidents by almost 35 per cent between 2007 and 2012.
CiSTUP-IISc in its ‘B-TRAC – evaluation and impact study’ released today said accident rate in Bangalore city has come down progressively. In 2007, the number of road accidents was 8,426 and it came down to 5,502 cases in 2012.
Also the number of people killed in accidents has come down by 8 per cent. In 2002, about 820 people were killed and it peaked to 915 and 981 deaths in 2006 and 2007 respectively. However, in the last two years (2011 and 2012) it has come down to 762 and 755 deaths respectively.
For the project, Rs 124 crore has been spent in phases since 2006. Through a few B-TRAC initiatives, police have been able to mop up Rs 194 crore as fines.
According to T.G. Sitharam, chairman, CiSTUP-IISc, “B-TRAC has facilitated remodelling 46 traffic junctions as against the demand of 500 in the city. Due to high cost of shifting civic utilities, traffic police has entrusted work on 94 junctions to BBMP.”
The enforcement cameras, Blackberrys and printers have helped in catching traffic violators and also increased the collection of fines. Surveillance cameras have helped in better monitoring and management of the traffic in the city.
According to M.A. Saleem, Additional Commissioner of Police-Traffic, Bangalore City, “Bangalore traffic police have registered highest number of traffic violations in 2012. Also about 51.30 lakh cases were registered and Rs 53.85 crore of fine amount was collected from violators.”
Positive impact
Travel time in the city has been reduced and journey speed has increased due to signal optimisation.
Automation enforcement is in place to bring in more transparency in payment of fines. “For this, 500 digital cameras were provided to policemen manning the junctions and during the year 2012 about 16.91 lakh cases were booked,” said
Commenting on increasing violations, Bangalore City Commissioner of Police B.G. Jyotiprakash Mirji said, “Collecting fines is not an achievement, but what is disheartening is the growing number of violations despite awareness drives. People are willing to pay fine but are not ready to improve their behaviour on the road.”
As part of the B-TRAC project, the following penalties were introduced in the city: Suspension of driving licence of repeat offenders, implementation of uniform speed limits, auto rickshaw reforms, road safety training, removal of unscientific road humps, establishment of three new traffic police stations and effective citizen interaction.
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