Installation of the global positioning system (GPS) will be made mandatory for all commercial transport vehicles in the State by this year-end to bring in transparency.
All commercial vehicles, including autorickshaws, cars, trucks and buses, have to install GPS in line with the Centre and the Supreme Court’s direction, official sources in the Transport Department told The Hindu .
Those violating the rule will not be given permission to use the vehicle for commercial purposes or transportation, an official said. Owners have to install GPS devices at their own cost, which runs into a few thousand rupees, depending on the manufacturer.
Delhi Integrated Multi-modal Transit System (DIMTS), a firm, which has bagged the contract for installing GPS in commercial vehicles in Delhi, has submitted a detailed proposal for adoption of devices in Karnataka. The company, which bags the bidding, would be permitted to monitor the functioning of GPS in vehicles, the official said.
Fitting public transport vehicles with GPS devices was one of the measures that the Delhi government planned after the gang-rape case four years ago.
Sources said the GPS devices have been installed in 6,400 Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation and around 2,000 Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses. There are around 1.6 crore vehicles on the road in the State, of which 16 lakh are transport vehicles. Another 1.44 crore vehicles are non-transport, of which 1.15 crore are two-wheelers.
Adoption of devices would help the Transport Department to keep a tab on mineral-laden trucks and crack down on illegal transportation of minerals. Such devices help track trucks from the time of loading to unloading and also crack down on stolen vehicles, the official said. Currently, most logistics and courier service enterprises have installed these devices to track their vehicles. But a large number of commercial vehicles in the private sector have not adopted GPS devices. Installation of GPS provides details about the vehicle, including the distance covered and so on.
How it works
The GPS devices will receive satellite signals triangulating data such as location, speed, travel history, and driving patterns. This data can be collected by the vehicle owner as well as by a monitoring agency like the Transport Department. A control room will be set up to monitor movements of transport vehicles across the State.
As GPS devices are passive receivers of satellite signals, they cannot be disabled easily. However, tracking is dependent on the position of satellites, surroundings and the weather as a minimum of four satellites are needed for accurate noting of location.
