Smart police: A smooth drive will now be a click away

Traffic Police develop an app to update commuters about traffic situation.

LAHORE:

A mobile application is being designed to provide information about traffic volume on city roads using Google Maps, Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Tayyab Hafeez Chema said on Thursday.

“The application will be tested on The Mall in November, Cheema told The Express Tribune.

The CTO said traffic police had recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Engineering and Technology’s Khwarizmi Institute of Computer Science (KICS) for designing the application.

He said the technology would not only benefit traffic wardens and road users, it would also help him monitor the wardens. He said android phones would be given to wardens for uploading thetraffic situation in their area.



He said information provided by wardens would be available on a map. “This will help commuters plan their journey accordingly.”

The CTO said the application would monitor location and movement of wardens from the control room.

KICS Technology Commercialisation and Incubation Centre head Ahsan Khan said they would give a presentation to the CTO on October 23.

“There will be several applications designed for the project. One of them will be for traffic wardens to provide information about traffic volume. The information will be disseminated to traffic police’s helpline and the map.”

He said another application would update commuters about the status of traffic.

“If a road is blocked, the application will mention it on the map. In case of VIP movement, road userswill be able to choose another route.”

He said the application would also allow road users to update the map.

Khan said the information given by commuters would be uploaded after validation by the warden concerned.

He said motorists using the application would initially be assigned yellow colour. “If information given by them is correct, they will be considered responsible users and will then be assigned green colour. Updates given by them in the future will be immediately uploaded.”

Khan said those providing wrong information would be assigned red colour. He said an application introducing ‘e-challaning’ was part of the project.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2014.