CCTV cameras aided by artificial intelligence will now help traffic authorities in Gurgaon track down motorists without helmets and those travelling on the wrong side.
Officials of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) said 50 of these CCTVs with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras of 5 MP resolution, which use optical character recognition to read licence plates, have been set up across key traffic junctions in the city, and several points along the Delhi-Gurgaon national highway.
The decision to install AI-equipped cameras was taken after the GMDA received reports from the traffic police about a rise in fatalities, particularly among two-wheeler drivers riding without a helmet and engaging in wrong-side driving.
“With artificial intelligence, the cameras will be able to detect the violations and automatically issue a challan. It will record photographs and read vehicle registration data for the specific violation and after verification, it will be sent for challaning. The live feed from these cameras will be monitored by the traffic police team in the Integrated Command and Control Center in GMDA’s office and the traffic tower,” a GMDA official said.
While the AI-enabled cameras will automatically issue challans for helmet-less riding and use of the wrong side, manual intervention will be required for seat-belt violations, officials said. “The seat-belt related violations will be tracked manually. The cameras have been equipped with magnifiers to process images for clarity. If someone is not wearing a seat-belt, the camera image will be used to zero in on the violator and their number plate. For wider roads, the ANPR camera will not be effective due to the high volume of traffic but on two-lane roads, it would be easier to spot such violations,” said a GMDA official.
The move to install these CCTVs will “reduce reaction time and manpower hours, and more efficiently track traffic violations as compared to manual monitoring”, said the official.
“In the past week since the technology has been introduced, the results have been encouraging. With machine learning, it is possible that there will be an error differential since no system is 100 percent accurate, but we are putting in place a system for verification of challans,” said the official.
Sudhir Rajpal, CEO, GMDA, said: “We are working towards further expanding the traffic surveillance network in the city.”
Sources said the GMDA plans to install additional AI-enabled CCTV cameras to detect number plates in speeding violations. Earlier last week, GMDA had identified over 38 locations where maximum violations for wrong-side driving occur in Gurgaon.
“The locations are being mapped through these CCTV cameras and have been integrated with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) data so that an automatic e-challan can be generated after tracking the number plate of the vehicle violating the concerned traffic rule,” said P K Aggarwal, Advisor, Smart City, GMDA.
“Residents can now also track and pay all their traffic violation challans via the ‘myGurugram’ app of GMDA. One only needs to enter their vehicle number along with the car’s engine number or chassis number to view the details of their challans and pay it through this app,” added Aggarwal.
In Phase 2 of installing CCTVs, 2,722 cameras will be installed at 258 locations across the city including face recognition cameras at 47 points, GMDA had said recently. In Phase 1, over 1,100 cameras have been installed.
In Delhi, currently, there are two types of cameras that have been installed by the traffic police: the Over-Speed Violation Detection Camera (OSVD) and the Red Light Violation Detection Camera (RLVD).
These cameras, along with more than 155 special CCTVs, help the police capture speed, red-light and parking violations, and accident cases. E-challans for seat belt and helmet are issued manually on the road.
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