Strategic Feedbacks
Specific Feedbacks

What are Strategic Feedbacks? These are the feedbacks that will be applicable in general across the city. Though it may take more time to implement these, it will bring about positive results in the long term.

What are Specific Feedbacks? These are the feedbacks that aim to bring out specific issues at specific places in the city. These are related to specific problems faced faced by citizens.

Strategic Feedbacks

SPTM-PO-str001: Take up the mission: "No tolerance to irresponsible behavior, anytime, anywhere."

• This is our suggestion for the Mission that should to be adopted by the traffic police. This should charge up the entire police force and drive all the actions.  

• Few years back, the idea of No tolerance zone was tried, focusing a large police force on a small area. We strongly feel, entire Pune city should be a No tolerance zone! But obviously, this cannot be and should not be by deploying military! Rather, it should be done through a well though out strategy to do surprise checks and approach should be do ensure "Consistent non tolerance to irresponsible behavior by any type of vehicle, any time and anywhere".

• Our final aim should be that a Policeman is not needed where there is a working traffic signal. This is a waste of resource. Police should rather move around and do surprise checks at various places. If the rules can allow it, this should even be done incognito (they should be required to show their I-cards, when they catch some defaulter).

More examples of non-consistent approach to defaulters

•  It is observed that Police mostly target two wheelers and take a very lenient attitude towards some vehicles e.g. all Government vehicles, PMT buses and even Cars. Most PMT drivers stop buses at the Bus stops in such a way that it blocks the traffic. This is also extremely dangerous for the bus commuters who want to get in or get down.

• Similarly, Police hardly ever catch vehicles like say Garbage trucks of PMC, who are seen to speed unnecessarily and also spilling garbage that they collected, on the roads.

• Many PUC check vehicles are seen to park themselves very near the signals. One such vehicle is seen to park right under the signal after crossing Mhatre Bridge, while going from Nal Stop to Lokmanyanagar. These vehicles also declare on the boards “RTO Pune Authorized” in large size, indicating as if RTO has authorized them to park there!!

SPTM-PO-str002:Never ask citizens to go against the rules. If necessary, adapt the road conditions. 

• Many times, Police give a hand signal to the drivers stopping at the traffic signal to go ahead and take a Left Turn, although the signal is Red.
• At some signal joints, Police allow the vehicles to go on from wrong side of the Road divider. Example is: Police allow vehicles coming from Law college road and wanting to take right turn to Karve Road to go from wrong side of the divider. When asked about this, they say that otherwise it will not clear the traffic. However, this only creates chaos at the point of turning in front of telephone exchange. This also creates a traffic jam, if a large Bus turns into law college road, since many two wheelers or now even four wheelers block all the road. Correct approach here would be to use soft dividers and increase a lane, as appropriate.
• Some times, it is seen that where Digital Timers are installed, even if it is still Red and few seconds are to go before it becomes Green, Police ask vehicles to go ahead, since there is no traffic from other direction. Now a days, people have started inching ahead beyond stop line even when there are 7 or 8 seconds to go and start off when there are still 3 to 5 seconds to go. Even if Police is present, he is seen to ignore this behavior of citizens.

All the above points give a very wrong message to the citizens:  “Follow the rules, as per the convenience”. For example, the consequence of this is that now the people have started crossing from the wrong side of the divider at many other places also. Hence, we feel, the Police must never ask / allow the citizens to go against the signals or rules, unless there is some breakdown or some extraordinary situation.

Better way is to adapt the condition on the road. For example, if the Police feels that the timing of the signal is not correct, he should initiate action to get it changed, but he should never ask people to go ahead even if it is still Red.

These are the examples, where actually Police themselves tend to encourage Citizens getting bad driving habits. Please take an action to stop this at all places. It will be necessary to synchronize new Police people who join the traffic department with such strategies, including the knowledge of traffic rules, through well planned induction program.

SPTM-PO-spc001: Prominent "No Entry for two wheelers" road sign in English as well as Marathi, on Lakdi bridge.

Present "No Entry two wheelers" message at Lakdi bridge is not very prominent and it is only in Marathi. It should be made much more prominent and it should be ensured that if a person from outside Pune and more importantly a person from outside Pune should be able to notice the No Entry sign, before he/she tries to go on the bridge.

Secondly, if Police sees that a person on two wheeler is about to go on to bridge, they do not stop the person from committing the offence. They rather allow the person to commit an offence and then they catch the person. If this person normally always follows rules and he committed this error due to ignorance and because the road sign is not prominent, this experience creates a bad feeling in their mind against police and overall system. This must be avoided.