Focusing on bringing traffic police credibility back on track, says top cop

Rachana Ramesh | NT

Bengaluru: “First, I would like to make a disclaimer that the traffic police is not the whole and soul of traffic management in the city,” said M A Saleem, the recently appointed ADGP and Special Commissioner of Traffic Police, who is being lauded for his efforts to decongest the city.

In conversation with V Ravichandar, an urbanist, at an event held in the city, he further explained that they are only responsible for three things: regulation of rules, enforcement of traffic laws, and ensuring road safety. “Traffic management is a big, generic term that involves road design, town planning, and much more,” he said, stressing that the traffic police are currently focusing on bringing their credibility back on track.

Since his appointment, under Saleem’s guidance, the traffic police have made many marginal interventions that have given positive results by decreasing travel time in many areas. Saleem noted that the first intervention they made was introducing a ban on cargo vehicles moving around the city limits during peak hours.

Then, they identified close to 10 junctions that do not fall under the Central Business District (CBD) area, such as the Silk Board and Hebbal junction and found that over 20–25% of the traffic was light commercial vehicles (LVCs).

The police have now provided alternative roads to these vehicles, helping segregate traffic and reducing the travel time in these junctions from 20-25 minutes to 8-10 minutes.The most significant step taken by the Saleem administration is to focus on regulating traffic, rather than enforcing traffic laws. Various measures involving technology are being implemented in order to enforce the laws while sustaining the focus on regulation, he said.

Currently, over 30,000 challans are being generated online for violators each day. However, these notices generated by the automated challaning system are often ignored by citizens. In order to tackle this issue, the traffic police have devised two interventions – vehicles with yellow boards will need to clear all their dues before obtaining the mandated fitness certificate each year at the transport department and those with whiteboards will have to clear all the dues to get their insurance policy renewed yearly.

Saleem said that the issue of traffic congestion in the city is mainly due to a capacity problem. The number of vehicles is significantly higher, disproportionate in comparison to the capacity and network of the roads. There are over 1.7 crore vehicles in the city, making it 100 vehicles per 130 people. Along with this, another issue is the pace at which the growth of public transport is taking place.

If the BMTC increases its fleet of buses, the Namma Metro work is completed in a timely fashion, and the suburban trains are given a push, private vehicle owners will naturally make a switch to public transport, easing congestion, he added.

“Traffic is one area where citizens come into contact with the police very often. May it be a commuter who travels by bus, a pedestrian, a two-wheeler rider, or a person who drives a car,” Saleem said, adding that citizen participation in traffic management is required to help make the city more liveable.

Famously deemed “One Way” Saleem, the new commissioner said that the traffic police have plans to soon turn a single road into a one-way and also plan to install adaptive signalling systems where AI will regulate waiting time at signals, along with many more interventions.