The Kathmandu Valley Traffic Police Office has booked as many as 4,314 traffic rule violators over the past seven months, it said on Monday. Of them, 3,292 were booked after the office’s CCTV control room released information, while the remaining 1,022 were nabbed from different places in the Valley.

The office also informed of its plan to increase the use of an automated system to identify traffic rules violations.

“With the automated system, we aim for an increased surveillance on traffic rules violations,” said Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Mira Chaudhari, who is also the chief at the Valley Traffic Office. “We have made progress towards that.”

According to traffic officials, the control room has three full time personnel who, through CCTV surveillance, keep records of traffic rules violations such as red light jumping, lane crossings, open door, and flouting of one-way rule.

Those assigned in the control room point out the number of vehicles, their location, time, and type. They contact the Transportation Office to get the rule violators’ personal details.

“Then we contact the violators, summon all of them to our office, and they pay the fine,” said Rajendra Prasad Bhatta, spokesperson at the office.

Officials say the offenders who are caught on CCTV footage are fined ranging between Rs500 and Rs1,500. They also have to attend the mandatory one-hour road safety awareness class.

“With this move [use of automated system], those who have been flouting traffic rules when they don’t see traffic police will become more conscious,” Bhatta said. “We hope that this will also help in reducing road-related accidents.”

Over the past few years, the traffic police has become more technology-friendly. It had started to use CCTV for surveillance on the roads starting from 2017, but that was not much effective.

“Now we are fully equipped,” Chaudhari said. “There will be more CCTVs on the roads so that people will be more conscious about traffic rules violations. This will surely decrease road-related accidents.”

Earlier, during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the traffic police decided to move all of its paperwork related to traffic rules violations online. The violators could pay their fines at the Global IME Bank and attend the mandatory one hour class.

Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley traffic police department also plans to introduce more automation for overspeeding vehicles.

“Besides using a radar speed gun, we will also install automated machines that can keep records of all overspeeding vehicles at once,” Chaudhari said. “This will be a great tool to control accidents on the highways.”