LAHORE: A total of 13 million e-challans have been issued through Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB)’s e-ticketing system developed for National Highway and Motorway Police (NHMP), collecting a sum of Rs 4.4 billion. PITB Chairman and Information Technology University (ITU) Vice Chancellor Dr Umar Saif said this while chairing a meeting on Thursday. “The e-ticketing system has improved the efficiency of the challan process and facilitated vehicle owners by helping them pay their fines at the spot without wasting their time to deposit the fine at banks or to visit traffic office to get their documents,” he said. He said that the result-oriented system developed through technology by the PITB had been met with acceptance by the public at large and it had established transparency in the traffic ticketing process as well as had eliminated the chances of bribery and corruption. “The e-ticketing system is now operational across Pakistan and being implemented by the NHMP after necessary training of the respective officials at PITB,” he added. “The technology oriented device was developed in June 2015 and its first trial was conducted in August 2015. After further necessary improvements in the system, now it is operative all over the country. The system data also collects details of the vehicles, accidents, date of the incident, habitual violators, real time location of time stamp, accident analysis, causes and the person involved, which is a big leap ahead through technology,” said DIG Abbass Ahsan while explaining the features of the system. Earlier, in an inaugural ceremony held at Murree Expressway, Federal Minister for Communication Dr Hafiz Abdul Karim said that by June 2018, the total length of motorways would increase three folds to 2,400 kms. “This was just 580 km in 2013. This required appointment of additional workforce,” he said. Communication Federal Secretary Furqan Haider said that the CPEC activity was increasing the road network in the country and the prime minister had given special instructions to complete the motorways, highways and expressways at the earliest. Dr Syed Kaleem Imam, the NHMP IG, while acknowledging the technological support by PITB said that efforts were being made on road safety education and a driving licensing school had been established. “As compared to 2016, a reduction of 44 percent has been noticed in traffic accidents in 2017. It was always our endeavor to ensure safety of every road user,” he said. Accidents: The numbers of fatal and non fatal accidents were reduced to 63 percent as 28 in the year of 2017 as compared to 44 in the year of 2016 on National Highways and Motorway Police N-5 Central Zone from Lahore to Rahim Yar Khan. National Highways and Motorway Police DIG Mirza Faran Baig said this while reviewing the annual performance of central zone at zonal office on Thursday. The DIG added that careless driving, joining highways carelessly, lane violation, taking U-Turn carelessly, over speeding, careless road crossing, mechanical fitness, dozing at wheel, wrong overtaking, failure to keep safe distance, sharp cut, road slippery, one way violations and foggy weather. He said that NHMP had adopted strategies such as round the clock patrolling, road safety education, equal implementation of laws and regulations, road safety campaigns, zero tolerance against violations and anti encroachment, campaigns were the contributing factors for lowering accidents ratio. He added that closure of illegal u-turns, enforcements on passengers and luggage overloaded vehicles another major factor for reducing accidents on highways. Baig said that 2.19 million tickets were issued to motorists on violation of traffic rules. “A total of 220,742 helps were rendered to road users on highways. The Motorway Police also organised awareness sessions in which 2.7 million road users were informed about the traffic rules,” he said. Published in Daily Times, January 26th 2018.