The violence against women in India has grown to be a matter of grave concern, cutting across the boundaries of culture, class, education, ethnicity and age. Even in the 21st century, women cannot step out of their house assured of their physical safety. Just after a year of the in-famous assault on women, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on the 2nd January 2014, approved Rs. 1,405 crore which would be implemented on two levels : national (National Vehicle Security and Tracking System) and state (City Command and Control Centre). It would have a coverage ratio of more than a million of the population and aims to aid women in distress with minimum response time. The Safety elements which would be incorporated are: tracking and geo-fencing of all public transport vehicles with visual and text signals denoting violations. Additionally, panic buttons will be installed on all public vehicles along with CCTV on vehicles with large seating capacity. The CCTV footage will be authorized for use as evidence in the arrest of any individual accused of instigating an incident. The tracking, geo-fencing and panic buttons all require telematics products, making this government project a catalyst for growth of the telematics industry. The project will help in mapping routes of public vehicles, tracking vehicles on routes, highlighting violations through visual and text signals, and a panic button to alert police.
Description
Para transit modes like auto rickshaws, shuttle bus, and private taxis, mass transit modes like local trains, metros and buses can be equipped with panic buttons which could be connected to a M2M device, which is equipped with GPS for locations, GPRS/CDMA for sending location updates. Voice service facility could be offered on top of the entire solution, as and when required.
And the PCR VAN is also connected with a M2M Device which can display the incident location with shortest path to reach the location. Voice can also be used to interact with the victim.
Typical Call Flow
- Citizen pushes panic button in the vehicle in case of emergency
- The alarm is raised in the emergency control center
- Emergency control center locates the nearest emergency VAN
- Send to the incident location
Indian ecosystem Landscape
- In our country, Para transit modes are all managed in an adhoc manner; low end vehicles with no embedded electronics advancement leaving them isolated in an envisaged connected world. Tampering is also very prominent with these segments.
- Mass transit are all managed by organized transport agencies or government departments, there would be need to connect all the vehicles with a M2M device which is able to transmit and receive information.
- Currently,emergency vehicles and services are not embedded with electronics advancements and would require an external device to be connected. Coordination within the agencies and departments would be a pre-requisite to make it effective.
- Currently there are no regional emergency control centers which are equipped and connected to all public and emergency vehicles.
We at Happiest Minds firmly believe that, as we go forward we should leverage technology to envisage a big change and make a difference in how people live, work and innovate. Let’s go invent tomorrow, instead of worrying about tomorrow as “Once technology rolls over you, and you are not part of the steamroller, you become part of the road”.
Aditya is a former Happiest Mind and this content was created and published during his tenure.