India’s first Pelican Signals installed at Hyderabad’s Tank Bund

Hyderabad: Just press the button and safely cross the road. To facilitate the pedestrians cross the ever busy Tank Bund in complete comfort, the Hyderabad traffic police have now introduced pelican signals on the stretch.

The signals inaugurated by Hyderabad Police Commissioner, CV Anand on Wednesday, benefits both the pedestrians and motorists with the former crossing the road stretch after cautioning the motorists and the latter slowing down vehicles at right time.

“An increased visibility of cross walks to drivers, and regulated and safe flow of traffic are the key benefits of this engineering measure,” said Anand. The traffic police initially will post traffic volunteers to operate and educate the public on how to operate the pelican signals.

Anand said it is for the first time in India the pelican signals are being installed. All these signals will give a window of 15 to 20 seconds for one to cross the road safely by turning the vehicular signal red in both directions.

He also handed over 100 body worn cameras to traffic frontline officers. Using the cameras, the police officials can record their interactions with the public during enforcement, accidents, and other incidents.

“The feed from the body worn camera can be viewed live from the traffic control room. This will improve transparency and accountability in traffic management and keep a check on undesired behaviours from the violators and the enforcement officers,” he said.

A kit containing rain coats, rain boots, glucose packets, water bottles and sunglasses to traffic constables was also distributed. Anand also handed over rugged tabs to patrol officers which would help them to attend Dial 100 emergency calls, screen suspects and keep a close watch on history sheeters using internal applications and geospatial features and access department’s data in real time.