Over the last many months, the government has been focusing on implementing technology solutions that include CCTV, biometric as well as GPS in school transport vehicles, which allow school and parents to ensure a secure ride for the children to and from school. Following the roll out plan for schools, the government has now issued orders for all public transport to be adaptive to remote monitoring technology.

As per government orders issued 4 days ago, barring three wheelers, i.e. autos and e-rickshaws, all modes of road transport, viz. taxis as well as buses will need to install GPS devices to facilitate location tracking, as well as alert buttons. This will need to be done on all vehicles before March 31, 2018.

Taking strict compliance to the same, the government has specified that there will be no leverage to the above deadline. The road transport ministry has also said that the deadline to implement the GPS and Alert buttons will continue as is, following reports that most of the states had not done much to meet the date targets. A senior official of the ministry said that there will be no extension in rolling out these passenger safety measures in public transport vehicles.

As per the orders, the GPS tracking devices will be fitted by the service providers and the alert button will sent a message to the police control room and the transport department or the managing authority for the vehicles, enabling them to take quick action.

The state transport department will be given the responsibility of putting a control system in place for tracking public transport.

“We have taken cognizance of the requirement and are ensuring that we provide such state of the art equipment at feasible costs to the public transport operators, which include taxis and bus services that are operating in the southern Rajasthan belt. We have the resources to manage such implementation in Udaipur, Chittor, Banswara, Bhilwara and Dungerpur in Rajasthan and Himmatnagar, Baroda, Bharuch and adjoining areas in Gujarat”, said a representative from Unico Management Solutions, who are a renowned surveillance services provider in the region. He further added that many schools and colleges in the region have already availed these services and we are happy that we have been able to facilitate meeting their requirements vis-a-vis the deadlines.