Dropped in Pune, Traff.i.Cop to be launched in 9 cities

Impressed by the Traff.i.Cop pilot project of the Pune police, the state home department has decided to replicate this project in nine commissionerates in the first phase in the state over the next few months.

Ironically, the successful pilot project which originated in the city in November, 2009, was discontinued six months ago due to lack of funds.

The system is now slated to be introduced in Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Amravati and Solapur city police commissionerates over the next few months.

In the second phase, it would include the district commissionerates.

The system was introduced by former DCP (traffic) Manoj Patil and won accolades, especially from Home Minister, RR Patil. Under this scheme, the Pune traffic police collected additional Rs1 crore revenue from violators in 2009.

The system has records of all vehicles, which includes registration number, colour, class and even the engine number.

This data can be accessed by the traffic police easily on the BlackBerry.

Police sources told DNA that on June 30, the minister of state for home, Satej Patil and senior police officers including Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic), Vishwas Pandhare, had attended a meeting in Mumbai when Patil took a review of the system.

The minister confirmed to DNA that in the first phase, the scheme would be implemented in nine commissionerates after which it would be launched across the state.

Additional Chief Secretary, Umesh Sarangi, with the home department told DNA that the pilot project which was implemented in Pune was a success and a police officer was also sent to Bangalore to study their system to book traffic violators.

The Traff.i.Cop system has computerised data of 11 lakh vehicles within the limits of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations besides details of about 8.60 lakh two-wheelers.

The data bank includes information of all 375 series of vehicles from the RTOs of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad as well as updated data of seven lakh stolen vehicles obtained from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) and local data of 7,700 stolen vehicles.

This data is available over the BlackBerry handsets, which the traffic police can tap into to book violators or confirm vehicle details.

It also enables the police to confirm the latest fitness and passing certificate records of autorickshaws.

With the help of this data, the police can easily seize vehicles with immediate effect as the investigation time for the three-wheelers will be reduced from two hours to a few minutes.

The system has a central server connected through a hub to the nodes. Traffic violation data is collected from various police stations and consolidated before being distributed to various police stations.

Speaking to DNA, senior police inspector (traffic administration) Vijaykumar Palsule said the system has helped solve serious crimes.