New-age solutions for age-old problems
PARKING RULES Local bodies are developing hi-tech answers to monitor and redress parking issues but they face shortage of funds and trained personnel
NEWDELHI: While the new parking rules aim at regulating parking and discourage the use of private vehicles, monitoring and enforcement of the rules remain a key challenge for the cashstrapped municipal corporations, which are also reeling under staff shortage.
The onus of monitoring and enforcement of the Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Places Rules, 2019, notified on September 23, largely rests with the three municipal corporations of the city – North, East and South Delhi Municipal Corporations.
The rules state that the current system — basically a few cranes deployed for towing illegally parked vehicles — was not working as deterrent. “Enforcement with a combination of design, technology and manual means is the key to the success of any parking strategy,” the rules state.
Hence, for the first time, the civic agencies are considering parking system that is fully Information Technology (IT)-driven. Such IT solutions include developing a common mobile application, high-tech control centres and installation of CCTVs for better monitoring.
Apart from this, the corporations are also making efforts to further make monitoring and enforcement robust by authorising the parking contractors to tow illegally parked vehicles, deployment of special checking squads, procurement of more machinery and hire staff.
HIGH-TECH CONTROL CENTRES
Kamla Nagar in North Delhi will be among the first three localities — the others being Lajpat NagarIII in South Delhi and Krishna Nagar in east, where the new parking rules will be implemented by December end on a pilot basis. If successful, they’ll be replicated across the city.
Varsha Joshi, commissioner of North Corporation, says the body would have to diversify its monitoring mechanism to ensure better enforcement. “We are planning to set up common control rooms for better and continuous monitoring. These centres will be set up at zonal levels for effective vigil. All data will be received here and officials will be able to keep a tab on the enforcement of parking rules in particular Parking Management Area Plans (PMAPs) area,” she said.
Joshi, however, added that modalities are still being discussed to plan it in a better way.
Anuj Malhotra, knowledge partner with the ministry of home affairs, who is assisting the three civic bodies in formulating and implementing PMAPs, said these would have large video walls to keep a tab on every activity. “It will have a graphical display of every activity on the ground. Activities will be shown in the form of coloured dots. Officials present in the centre will be able to see the violations, vacant parking slots and filled parking spaces. This will make the monitoring and enforcement better,” Malhotra said.
He said that the video wall would receive data from various sources such as hand-held devices with parking attendants, CCTVs and mobile application for parking among others.
Malhotra added that these were the preliminary details as designing of the centres and the app was yet to be finalised.
COMMON MOBILE APPLICATION
According to municipal officials, IT systems will play a big role in developing an efficient parking management systems in the future as technological interventions are required at various steps in the parking order.
The officials said that a common mobile application would be developed to facilitate citizens to locate available off-street as well as on-street parking spaces, which would help in better enforcement.
“The north corporation is already working on a tender to design a common mobile application which can be downloaded by citizens to see whether parking lots are available at a market, say in Karol Bagh, Kamla Nagar, or anywhere they wish to visit. The data provided on this app will come from a central server that will connect all the handheld ticketing devices the parking attendants carry across various PMAPs,” said Malhotra.
He said that the software of these handheld devices will be upgraded to store information on full and empty parking lots.
A senior official of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) said that the idea was to allow the public to see authorised parking sites and availability of empty parking lots in any part of the city on the map provided on the municipal website.
“This will help the municipalities, to connect the system to the traffic police, ministry of roads and highways for the data that can be used in future planning and monitoring,” said Prem Shankar Jha, deputy commissioner remunerative cell of the SDMC.
However, a senior municipal official, requesting anonymity, said that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had developed a similar mobile application a few years back, but it “became defunct after a while”.
“Continuous and efficient operation of the system will be a tough proposition,” the official said.
Asad Pravez, additional director (IT), North Corporation said that there was a paucity of funds that is needed to raise such complex systems, and trained staff to run it. “It is a sophisticated idea, but we need a lot of resources for it,” he said.
Malhotra further said that Delhi would be the first city in the country to have a proper parking policy and a monitoring mecha
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The north corporation is already working on a tender to design a common mobile application which can be downloaded by citizens to see whether parking lots are available at a market, or anywhere they wish to visit.
ANUJ MALHOTRA, knowledge partner with ministry of home affairs
nism. He said that parking was linked to common mobility cards, which is meant for public transport, for better parking management in foreign cities like London, Mexico, San Francisco, Singapore and Hong Kong.
NON-TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS
Apart from IT-based solutions, trained staff and extra machinery along with vigilance teams would be required for better monitoring and enforcement of the parking rules.
Aman Rajput, additional commissioner East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) and nodal officer of the Krishna Nagar pedestrianisation plan admitted that for cash strapped corporations, enforcement with limited resources would be a challenge for the project.
To do away with staff shortage, the municipal corporations are mulling to authorise parking contractors to tow illegally parked
cars in and around their respective PMAPs.
“Once parking contractors are brought on board, the staff shortage problem will be taken care of to a major extent. We are in discussion phase in this connection and will soon arrive on some conclusion. We are also planning to hire more staff and more cranes. We are also exploring the possibility to create some separate budget for enforcement of the parking policy,” Rajput said.
He explained that no contractor would want to allow any vehicle to be parked illegally as it would affect their business. For instance, if a concessionaire has been given the parking contract for Gandhi Nagar then they would have to ensure that vehicles are parked in authorised space only.
A similar solution is being explored in the north and south corporations as well.
Besides this, special checking squads will also be formed to keep a check on the violators and penalise them. The officials involved with the implementation of parking policy said that the number of personnel in the checking squads is yet to be decided but it will have officials from all enforcement agencies such as municipal corporations and traffic police.
The municipal officials said that in residential areas Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) could chip in with the monitoring, but the authority to tow vehicles would remain with the municipal corporation. “Contacts of municipal staff will remain available with the RWAs and they can inform whenever they see any violation. Municipal staff will remove the illegally parked vehicles,” Jha said.
Other than these measures, the municipalities will also install proper signage, digital as well as normal, to tell people about designated parking areas and contact number of authorities.