Explaining how the chopper on traffic duty proved handy, Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Muktesh Chander said that within a span of minutes warnings were acted upon, considerably reducing the delay in movement across routes.
“For instance, if the message received at the wireless traffic net live office was that at a certain stretch there were more vehicles, we stopped others heading towards the same point.
This happened on the routes as well as the ghats. If we realised that the procession was smaller and occupied lesser space on the roads or the traffic volume was lower, we could allow more vehicles,” he said.
Flying at heights in the range of 1,000 to 2,000 feet, traffic men as well as senior officers who kept an eye on the traffic were joined by pilots provided by Pawan Hans in the chopper, which had a capacity to fly four passengers as well as the pilot and the co-pilot. The traffic officers were carrying map of the city with the diversions marked besides being guided by the inbuilt navigation via the pilots, said the police.
The purpose of hiring the helicopter was limited to traffic management but Mr. Chander said that in case of emergency, it can be used in airlifting objects of a certain weight with the use of hydraulic winch. It can also be used for dropping life jackets in case of someone drowning, he added.
When asked if surveillance was the sole purpose then why did the police not use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones, Mr. Chander said that while a drone sends images, the feed takes a while to stream before it can be viewed and analysed while videography from the chopper is an added feature besides manual surveillance. “Our men aboard the chopper can keep an eye over the entire traffic and can process the traffic pattern in real time. Their feedback comes instantly to the control room and simultaneously flashed to everyone performing ground duties thus enabling them better to make adjustments,” said Mr. Chander.
