E-way drone project delayed?

A REPORT ON THE PROBLEMS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROJECT WILL SOON BE SUBMITTED TO THE STATE GOVT

NAVI MUMBAI/PUNE: The project involving drones assisting highway traffic police in catching motorists flouting traffic rules on Mumbai-pune E-way may not happen anytime soon. After the pilot project resulted in action against 41 motorists for lane-cutting and speeding, it may take longer to become a permanent part of the highway police machinery.

In a report to be submitted to the government soon, the state highway authorities are likely to underline some of the problems in implementing the drone monitoring exercise. These include inability of the camera installed on device to capture images during heavy rainfall on the expressway, which often witnesses high precipitation during the monsoon, leading to accidents. “The purpose of the drone testing exercise was to see the feasibility of the device in various conditions. During the tests, we found that cameras installed on drones cannot work when it’s raining ” said Amol Tambe ent of police. Samadhan Pawar, superintendent of police of highway traffic, said, “We used the drones and the cameras to zero in on errant motorists mainly in the Expressway’s ghat sections. However, the cameras had many limitations. They fail to capture anything if it rains or if there is a fog. There have no night vision cameras and so no action could be taken once it is dark.”

Since the durability of the camera batteries is just 15 minutes, they had to be replaced every time they discharged.

“The range of one camera was just 4kms. So we will need a huge number of these to cover the 94-km stretch. Since we conducted this drive as a pilot project, Aerial Mappers Pvt Ltd provided us the drones for free. So we did not have to spend on