B-Trac 2010: Another ill-conceived idea?
The Bengaluru Traffic police have embarked on a very expensive traffic management agenda with the B-TRAC 2010. The budget allocation is a whopping Rs. 350 crore. This is some very good money being spent, which sounds like a highly ill-conceived approach that has not been fully thought through. The traffic police propose to use some "state-of-the-art" technology to
implement this.
Having been born and brought up in Bengaluru, there are some fundamentals that have been ignored. Policy decisions like vehicular population apart, the police have completely ignored the human aspect of the situation. At peak time traffic, the police are in strength at say for example at the busy MG Road -Brigade Road junction. The written (and some unwritten) law is
enforced in full. When the signal turns red, the police-man at the junction manually signals the motorists to stop. This has become such a habit with motorists in Bengaluru that rules are followed only if a White-Khaki combination is spotted. RED means stop, policeman or no policeman, 11:15 AM or 10:30 PM. Some considerations for the traffic police, before good money, yours and mine is spent.
Habitual Offenders
Many a time at a traffic signal, there are vehicles stopped waiting for their turn. With no white-khaki in sight, the first yellow board vehicle, or a 6-wheeler, more often a two-wheeler jumps the signal. Then the mass follows. It is these two or three people who are the habitual offenders. IF you see a two-wheeler coming the wrong way on a one-way, 90% guaranteed, the person is not wearing a helmet, and often 3 people on the two-wheeler. More so, if you stop the person, he will have no papers for the vehicle, no license, no emission certificate and so on. These are people who have scant respect for the law. This will be the same person who jumps the signal at every opportunity, the same autorickshaw driver who demands excess fare. They make a habit to not follow the rules. Being so blatant about breaking the law, the traffic police-man stays away from
this kind and prefers to go after the meeker mortals to meet the fine collection targets.
Broken Window Theory
This theory was propogated by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. The thesis is to attack the problem when it is small and to attack the seemingly smaller or preceptively insignifcant problems. "if the first broken window in a building is not repaired, then people who like breaking windows will assume that no one cares about the building and more windows will be
broken. Soon the building will have no windows....". This theory was put into practice to fight crime in the US, notably in New York City sub-way system. The police went after ticketless travel which was considered the most minor offence. However, once a person was stopped for ticketless travel, the police could check the person for anything, concealed weapons, warrants,
et al. The theory however, holds good for enforcing traffic rules as well. Go after the smaller crimes, jumping signals, driving with high-beam on, parking on footpaths, jumping signal when it is the pedestrain turn, going the wrong direction in the one-way. A sense of the traffic has to be built into the minds of the people and for bigger part a respect for the law to be instilled.
Bottlenecks
In Bengaluru, traffic moves from one bottleneck to the next. There hardly is any stretch of road in Bengaluru that does not expand and later contract, leading to a bottleneck. Motorists spread out on the wide stretches and squeeze in at the bottleneck. Take for example the Brigade Road-Residency Road junction. For traffic that comes down Brigade Road to stop at the singal at this junction, the road widens upto Mota Arcade. The traffic spreads across this vast expanse, motorists await like race drivers at a start-line. Motorosts who come in last at the signal take up position on the extreme right. On the other side of the road, the continuation of Brigade Road is extremely narrow. When the signal turns green motorists from the right squeeze in, blocking others in the center, invariably backing the traffic up. Once you get thru this bottleneck another
one is waiting for you at the Vellara junction. Another notorious junction is in front of the BBMP office-LIC building. Traffic going towards market spread out inside the median and then attempt to cut across to squeeze past the signal. There is a serious need to keep the width of the roads constant for a stretch. TRaffic will move faster on a narrow road, than a road
of inconsistent width that widens and narrows.
High and mighty
Traffic law like all others, are disregarded most by politicians, government offcials and worse by police themselves. Many a time there are police vehicles parked right under a no parking sign. The official is NEVER on official business during these violations. IF one is driving through Queens Road, passing the Karnataka Pradesh Congress office is a nightmare when they are
in business. Two lanes of Queens Road turns into a parking lot. Parking on the footpath is a perennial problem.
Driving as the primary activity
For many people driving or riding is a secondary or sometime even tertiary activity. Talking on the cell phone while driving and even worse while riding a two-wheeler. It is a veritable circus on the road with the person smoking, speaking on the cell phone. Some two-wheel riders stuff their cell phones inside the helmets, the attention to riding the vehicle does not seem to matter at all. In one instance, I have spotted a two-wheeler with 3 people, the man riding the bike was riding and smoking, the 1st pillion was holding the cell phone to the ear of the rider, the 2nd pillion was giving the turn signals!
A good example of an ill-conceived idea of the traffic police is the dedicated auto-rikshaw lane on some roads. One lane out of 3 is exclusively for the auto-rickshaws. Does this mean that 1/3 of the traffic population are auto-rickshaws? According to the traffic police web site the auto-rickshaws constitute 3.21% of vehicular population in Bengaluru. Everyone who has
been on these roads knows that when the lanes reach a junction, it is total chaos. The auto-rickshaw who is on the extreme left, has to cut across the road to take a right turn. Other vehicles which need to turn left have to cut across the auto-rickshaw lane, vehicles merging from arterial roads have to muscle with the auto-rickshaws before they can reach the
center lanes. There are bus-stops on the roads with auto-rickshaw lanes. Now the bus has to stop in the center lane, commuters have to risk life and limb by walking across the auto-rickshaw lane, at the end the 3 lane road has been reduced to one!
The police need to factor in the human aspect into their plans. At the end of the day they are dealing with people and not vehicles. Their efforts are to be focused on this aspect, rather than setting up infrstructure where one can hire and auto-rickshaw via SMS. Ask any working woman on MG Road who is looking for an auto-rickshaw at 7 in the evening, there are
auto-rickshaws, but the auto-rickshaw driver is unwilling to take the fare. How does one educate the one-hand-on-cell-phone-call-center-vehicle driver who decides to make a U-Turn at a whim, with out a care for the traffic jam he caused behind and in front of him? What technology can achieve this?
A clear & focussed intent is the need of the day from the police. The motivation for law enforecement has to be just that, enforcing the rule of the law. As opposed to meeting the fine collection target for the month. The police have to look within for this, no help from the government or policy changes or legislation. They need to do some ground-level brain storming for solutions, technology can only be an enabler to the solution and not the solution itself.
References:
http://www.Wikipedia.org
http://www.cjcj.org
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell http://www.bcp.gov.in/english/trafficpolice/aboutus/aboutus.htm
http://www.btrac.in/index.htm
The Bengaluru Traffic police have embarked on a very expensive traffic management agenda with the B-TRAC 2010. The budget allocation is a whopping Rs. 350 crore. This is some very good money being spent, which sounds like a highly ill-conceived approach that has not been fully thought through. The traffic police propose to use some "state-of-the-art" technology to
implement this.
Having been born and brought up in Bengaluru, there are some fundamentals that have been ignored. Policy decisions like vehicular population apart, the police have completely ignored the human aspect of the situation. At peak time traffic, the police are in strength at say for example at the busy MG Road -Brigade Road junction. The written (and some unwritten) law is
enforced in full. When the signal turns red, the police-man at the junction manually signals the motorists to stop. This has become such a habit with motorists in Bengaluru that rules are followed only if a White-Khaki combination is spotted. RED means stop, policeman or no policeman, 11:15 AM or 10:30 PM. Some considerations for the traffic police, before good money, yours and mine is spent.
Habitual Offenders
Many a time at a traffic signal, there are vehicles stopped waiting for their turn. With no white-khaki in sight, the first yellow board vehicle, or a 6-wheeler, more often a two-wheeler jumps the signal. Then the mass follows. It is these two or three people who are the habitual offenders. IF you see a two-wheeler coming the wrong way on a one-way, 90% guaranteed, the person is not wearing a helmet, and often 3 people on the two-wheeler. More so, if you stop the person, he will have no papers for the vehicle, no license, no emission certificate and so on. These are people who have scant respect for the law. This will be the same person who jumps the signal at every opportunity, the same autorickshaw driver who demands excess fare. They make a habit to not follow the rules. Being so blatant about breaking the law, the traffic police-man stays away from
this kind and prefers to go after the meeker mortals to meet the fine collection targets.
Broken Window Theory
This theory was propogated by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. The thesis is to attack the problem when it is small and to attack the seemingly smaller or preceptively insignifcant problems. "if the first broken window in a building is not repaired, then people who like breaking windows will assume that no one cares about the building and more windows will be
broken. Soon the building will have no windows....". This theory was put into practice to fight crime in the US, notably in New York City sub-way system. The police went after ticketless travel which was considered the most minor offence. However, once a person was stopped for ticketless travel, the police could check the person for anything, concealed weapons, warrants,
et al. The theory however, holds good for enforcing traffic rules as well. Go after the smaller crimes, jumping signals, driving with high-beam on, parking on footpaths, jumping signal when it is the pedestrain turn, going the wrong direction in the one-way. A sense of the traffic has to be built into the minds of the people and for bigger part a respect for the law to be instilled.
Bottlenecks
In Bengaluru, traffic moves from one bottleneck to the next. There hardly is any stretch of road in Bengaluru that does not expand and later contract, leading to a bottleneck. Motorists spread out on the wide stretches and squeeze in at the bottleneck. Take for example the Brigade Road-Residency Road junction. For traffic that comes down Brigade Road to stop at the singal at this junction, the road widens upto Mota Arcade. The traffic spreads across this vast expanse, motorists await like race drivers at a start-line. Motorosts who come in last at the signal take up position on the extreme right. On the other side of the road, the continuation of Brigade Road is extremely narrow. When the signal turns green motorists from the right squeeze in, blocking others in the center, invariably backing the traffic up. Once you get thru this bottleneck another
one is waiting for you at the Vellara junction. Another notorious junction is in front of the BBMP office-LIC building. Traffic going towards market spread out inside the median and then attempt to cut across to squeeze past the signal. There is a serious need to keep the width of the roads constant for a stretch. TRaffic will move faster on a narrow road, than a road
of inconsistent width that widens and narrows.
High and mighty
Traffic law like all others, are disregarded most by politicians, government offcials and worse by police themselves. Many a time there are police vehicles parked right under a no parking sign. The official is NEVER on official business during these violations. IF one is driving through Queens Road, passing the Karnataka Pradesh Congress office is a nightmare when they are
in business. Two lanes of Queens Road turns into a parking lot. Parking on the footpath is a perennial problem.
Driving as the primary activity
For many people driving or riding is a secondary or sometime even tertiary activity. Talking on the cell phone while driving and even worse while riding a two-wheeler. It is a veritable circus on the road with the person smoking, speaking on the cell phone. Some two-wheel riders stuff their cell phones inside the helmets, the attention to riding the vehicle does not seem to matter at all. In one instance, I have spotted a two-wheeler with 3 people, the man riding the bike was riding and smoking, the 1st pillion was holding the cell phone to the ear of the rider, the 2nd pillion was giving the turn signals!
A good example of an ill-conceived idea of the traffic police is the dedicated auto-rikshaw lane on some roads. One lane out of 3 is exclusively for the auto-rickshaws. Does this mean that 1/3 of the traffic population are auto-rickshaws? According to the traffic police web site the auto-rickshaws constitute 3.21% of vehicular population in Bengaluru. Everyone who has
been on these roads knows that when the lanes reach a junction, it is total chaos. The auto-rickshaw who is on the extreme left, has to cut across the road to take a right turn. Other vehicles which need to turn left have to cut across the auto-rickshaw lane, vehicles merging from arterial roads have to muscle with the auto-rickshaws before they can reach the
center lanes. There are bus-stops on the roads with auto-rickshaw lanes. Now the bus has to stop in the center lane, commuters have to risk life and limb by walking across the auto-rickshaw lane, at the end the 3 lane road has been reduced to one!
The police need to factor in the human aspect into their plans. At the end of the day they are dealing with people and not vehicles. Their efforts are to be focused on this aspect, rather than setting up infrstructure where one can hire and auto-rickshaw via SMS. Ask any working woman on MG Road who is looking for an auto-rickshaw at 7 in the evening, there are
auto-rickshaws, but the auto-rickshaw driver is unwilling to take the fare. How does one educate the one-hand-on-cell-phone-call-center-vehicle driver who decides to make a U-Turn at a whim, with out a care for the traffic jam he caused behind and in front of him? What technology can achieve this?
A clear & focussed intent is the need of the day from the police. The motivation for law enforecement has to be just that, enforcing the rule of the law. As opposed to meeting the fine collection target for the month. The police have to look within for this, no help from the government or policy changes or legislation. They need to do some ground-level brain storming for solutions, technology can only be an enabler to the solution and not the solution itself.
References:
http://www.Wikipedia.org
http://www.cjcj.org
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell http://www.bcp.gov.in/english/trafficpolice/aboutus/aboutus.htm
http://www.btrac.in/index.htm
Labels: B-TRAC, B-TRAC 2010, bangalore, bengaluru, traffic police
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