Public Eye Bangalore Traffic Police.png

Bangalore Police launches Public Eye, Crowdsourced traffic violation reporting

Public Eye Bangalore Traffic Police.png

Crowdsourcing has been the buzzword from last few years and there are range of services varying from software testing to funding and it does seem to fuel a lot of things. Not to be left behind, Bangalore Traffic Police(BTP) have now launched a crowd sourced policing wherein the public can bring to their notice the traffic violations taking place in Bengaluru/Bangalore city!

Called as Public Eye, this service has been launched today and is hosted at their website.

Users will need to enter details like Vehicle number, type of violation, violation time and date, location. To curb misuse those reporting the violations will need to enter their details like mobile number, email address and optional remarks and there is a facility to upload images as well.

BTP already has a good number of camera installations at various junctions in the Bengaluru city and they regularly use the footings to identify offenders apart from uploading some of these at their Facebook page for educating public. Recently they have equipped their staff with digital cameras for recording offences. Notices would then be sent to the offender’s addresses later.

BTP were also the first in the country to use Blackberry phones (with a Bluetooth enabled portable printing) for delivering challans on the spot, for violations. A lot of this digital initiative enabled users to view their vehicle details online, for any violations.

We will have to wait and see how much of this Public Eye will aid in bringing control and reducing chaos on roads.

Related:

Traffic Alerts

Get Real Time Traffic Alerts via SMS

UPDATE July 25th 2013:

The numbers to receive traffic alerts have changed. New Number to subscribe according to Bangalore Traffic Police, as per their FB posting is as follows:

send an SMS  <JOIN BTP> to 9243511777

Via EMails:    <JOIN BTP Email id> to 9243511777

To Stop Alerts <STOP9243511777

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If you are about to start for the day or returning home from office and often find yourself struck in traffic jams, here is some good news. Bangalore Traffic Police in association with GupShup have launched (was operational long time, stalled and again working fine after recent SMS cap/day) SMS or text based alerts that will keep you posted on traffic jams and other traffic related activities.

It could be disruption due to sudden breakdown of a lorry/bus or no parking on main roads due to movement of a VVIP, you will get real time update of the traffic situation in Bangalore. BTP also conducts awareness and public interaction programs once in a month that you can attend at your nearest traffic police station for which you will also get alerts.

I have been relying on their updates to plan my travel and have found it very useful and must also say that I have never felt spammed or received any unsolicited messages.

Here is how you can subscribe to alerts on your phone:

send an SMS  JOIN BTP” to 09219592195

You can even join online by entering details here http://gupshup.me/groups/BTP

After a while you will get confirmation message from BT-Gupshp while the actual traffic alerts will have prefixes like xx-BLRTF 

Traffic Alerts

Here’s wishing you a Happy & Safe Driving