Deccan Herald 
 
BlackBerry, the latest handheld technology, has been introduced to make traffic enforcement transparent and effective. 

Bangalore, June 2: Beware motorist, you cannot evade the clutches of law for repeatedly breaking the traffic norms.

Thanks to the installation of traffic monitoring cameras at important traffic junctions and 280 BlackBerry hand-held devices given to the police to book cases online against law-breakers.

There is also some good news for motorists having mobile phones. They can get status of traffic on various roads and junctions via SMS with real-time traffic monitoring system while on the move, which will help them avoid certain areas where there is traffic congestion.
 
These are among the four projects launched by the City Traffic Police under the ambitious Bangalore Traffic Improvement Project (B-TRAC)-2010 on Friday.

The Easy Auto system and the traffic lane system are the other projects that became operational under the five-year B-TRAC project being implemented at a cost of Rs 350 crore to ease congestion on City’s major roads and bring discipline among motorists.

Info on the move

The Bangalore Traffic Information System (BITS) is a real-time traffic monitoring system that will help motorists.

Traffic on arterial roads is monitored using cellphone signals and this information is made available to motorists via SMS, internet, electronic display boards, radio and helplines. It will help people avoid congested locations and roads, besides providing estimated time for journey and guidance on traffic while on the move.

Those having Airtel mobile phones just have to send an SMS to 54321 to know congestion on particular road, area, junctions, routes between two localities with specific codes listed on the BTIS website.

Within minutes, the recent information on queries with approximate travel time will be delivered to the customer through the SMS. For instance, to know traffic situation on MG Road: SMS BTIS MGRD to 54321.

The website - www.btis.in - will also provide details on various road-maps with distance between major localities and the pre-paid autorickshaw fares.

Handheld device BlackBerry, the latest handheld technology, has been introduced to make traffic enforcement transparent and effective.

While the details of traffic offenders will be fed to this device, the receipt for registering a case or collecting fine will be issued through a Bluetooth-enabled wireless pocket printers.

The device, which has an online link with a server, will help the police to know the previous history of traffic violations by motorists.

IVRS 'Not Interactive'

On the launch day of Easy Auto, the call auto service scheme endorsed by Bangalore police and RTOs, the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) no 98441 12233 — created to guide passengers on the new service — remained unresponsive.

Calls made to the number during most parts of the day were responded to with a recorded message that said the registration process for the service will commence soon. Later in the day, the message was stopped as well.

The pilot project (for six months) was launched on Friday to help autorickshaw passengers book autos by calling or SMSing the IVRS number or visiting the website - www.easyauto.in. The site covers various features of the service, but again refers to the IVRS number for booking autorickshaws.