Daily Times

The world moves on energy to run motor cars technology. It has become necessity after all these motors drive and run on the roads. To move them smoothly, traffic police system works at its maximum to run these vehicles on the roads. They help to keep roads and walkways free of congestion so regular traffic, emergency vehicles and pedestrians can move safely. Depending on the location, they patrol on foot, by motor bike or in vehicles. Traffic police officers perform a lot of duties on roads. This includes closing roads, stopping traffic and managing traffic. It means that, if necessary, Traffic police force can tow broken-down and abandoned vehicles to clear obstruction. They are responsible for directing traffic during parades, road work or accidents. They also control crowd during emergencies to make sure fire and rescue workers can get to the scene safely.

Traffic force/officer can order a person who is as a driver running his vehicle on the road to stop when he’s on the road (whether or not he is driving). He is an authorized person who can make an official inquiry to ask him his full name, his driving license, his car’s/bike’s papers as well as any other details needed to identify him. He can order him to move it or authorize a tow-truck operator to move it if he believes on reasonable grounds that the vehicle is obstructing the road or an entrance or that it’s a safety risk or inconveniencing the public. If he doesn’t have a driving license, the police can forbid him to drive any motor vehicle. In case of an accident, if he found guilty, he can impose a heavy fine or may be FIR launched upon him.

CTO Lahore, Syed Hammad Abid has given the directive to traffic police to spread out awareness in educational institution and other non-professional organizations, mass awareness about road safety, distribution of hand bills and pamphlets at roads along with briefing, road safety awareness walk to avoid serious accidents. In the view of increasing traffic situation on the roads, CTO Lahore had started arranging seminars, advertisements on televisions and talk shows for making public safety measures friendly. And directed to serve as oriented traffic police force committed to excellence in traffic concern management softly that’s why Lahore traffic system is smooth as silk like never before. Credit goes to chief Inspector General Punjab police Mr. Shoaib Dastagir who appointed a competent police officer Mr. Syed Hammad Abid as CTO Lahore who launched a lot of services apps and with the help of modern changes system is playing a pivotal role to manage all the traffic of thickly populated city as Lahore. City Traffic Police Lahore with approximately 3000 Traffic wardens accepted the responsibility for policing a 12-million-persons city under the command of CTO. They accepted the responsibility by performing a wide variety of public safety, law enforcement, traffic management, counter-terrorism, and emergency response roles. According to my personal assessment, there are a total of 6.2 million vehicles including 4.2 million motor bikes are present in Lahore. There are 19.7 million vehicles in the entire province of Punjab. It shows that Lahore has around 32% of vehicles in Punjab. The department is catering nearly 195 traffic junctions, 1772 square kilometers of the city area and many signal-free corridors.

City Traffic Police Lahore perform a lot of duties on roads which includes enforcing laws and regulations, casualty reduction, counter-terrorism, reduce risk of accidents, denying criminals the use of the roads, public reassurance by high visibility patrolling of the road network, providing public information, handouts, and displays to encourage safe driving and usage of the roads and observing & reporting damage to the roadways. All these functions are under the supervision of CTO Lahore.

In the view of concerns of coronavirus (Covid-19) and keeping in view the convenience and time saving of the citizens, traffic challan e- payment was launched. An inaugural work of test run of electronic activity challan e-payment was held at CCPO Office. Zulfiqar Hameed (CCPO), Syed Hammad (CTO) and DG Punjab Information Technology Board attended the function. CTO Syed Hammad Abid gave a briefing on electronic activity challan e-payment framework. On this event, CTO said that keeping in view social separating, the strategy of electronic challan installment was clarified. Citizens ought not to line up at banks. In case of activity challan, citizens will be able to pull back their reports on the spot by paying from their versatile phones, online and ATM. In rushing hours some citizens cannot remember the way to their destination. In order to solve this problem, Rasta App has been introduced to keep citizens updated on traffic jams and direct them towards alternative routes with the melody of old and new songs being played at intervals. Although, it’s a good sign for travellers not to get bored during the long duration by hectic hazards ever happens in the city. So the above mentioned things are helping even equalizing the traffic system of city. According to me, these types of standards which are up to marks and not less than International standards which should be implemented in all big cities of Pakistan. With the help of these strategies we can save our costly time to reach well in time to meet our important tasks. On the way, in city there is huge and heavy traffic burden on the roads on special hours especially when schools, universities close then over burden road organize by the fully experienced traffic force who try their level best to keep moving all the city traffic. Although, it’s a heavy task and hectic concern but planning of organizing the routes of traffic help it get much smoother. Consequently, everybody reach on his destination. These remarkable promotions of chief traffic officer are highly appreciable who keep moving the city with the help of their obedient traffic force.

According to my personal observation, during the coronavirus peak days, the young and talented force and officers of (CTPL) have done an exceptional work to serve the citizens. They did not hesitate to do their job. Reports had been submitted to the CTO on daily basis. Action against Commuters violating Govt SOPs was taken in the areas including Canal Bridge Mall Road, Regal Chowk, IG Chowk, Liberty Chowk, Defence Morr, Deen Pur Lane, Canal Bridge Ichra and Campus Pull and a lot of other places of the city to maintain Law & Order.

The writer is an entrepreneur & senior economic analyst