It could be one of the many moves that would ease the traffic woes of the city. The city-based Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) is ready with the pilot project of a computerised system to evaluate a person’s driving skills. Based on Radio Frequency Identification, the system eliminates human intervention and thereby chances of subjectivity when it comes to testing skills and granting licenses.
But surprisingly, even as Bhubaneshwar and Hyderabad are all set to install the system by the month-end, hometown Pune is still mulling the system.
“The path of the applicant would be tracked while driving with the help of a reader placed in the vehicle. The RFID signals emanating from the tags will identify the vehicle and convey the information to a computerised system. This information will be further displayed on the computer screen in a two-dimensional format and would clearly identify any aberrations from the rules,” said N Ramasaamy, member of faculty and head, Intelligent Transport System (CIRT), who devised this system along with Umesh Suryavanshi, associate member of faculty.
The computerised system was proposed following allegations that driving school agents and motor vehicle inspectors were manipulating test results. “This showed up on the resultant chaos on the roads and high rate of accidents. We lose about one lakh lives every year on the roads. The main motive of devising this system is to bring down the number of accidents by ensuring only those who deserve, get a license to drive,” said Ramasaamy.
In Pune, talks have been on between CIRT and the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) for some time. “The project report has been submitted to us and is under consideration. It’s a big project for Pune given the number of vehicles the city has. Of the 7.1 crore vehicle population of India, Pune accounts for 1.1 crore. So we need multiple tracks under this system and that calls for a big budget,” said Chandarakant Kharatman, Regional Transport Officer, Pune.