LAHORE: A Turkish delegation comprising senior officials of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality called upon officials of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) on Friday to discuss the latest technological interventions made by the PITB into Lahore Police. PITB Information Technology Director General Faisal Yousaf, Chief Traffic Officer Lahore Rai Ejaz, Turkish city planner and transportation expert, Map and Transportation Project Designer Abdurrahman Evmez, geological engineer for traffic signal, traffic sign and traffic lane expert Naim Karatepe and Istanbul Traffic SP Muslum Apaydin were present on occasion. The delegation showed its interest in the use of innovative mobile apps for making the governance more vigorous, effective and sought assistance to replicate the system in Istanbul. Speaking on the occasion, Faisal Yousaf briefed the delegation on numerous projects undertaken by the PITB for a ‘Digital Punjab’, in general and IT solutions introduced through technological interventions into police, in particular. The delegation witnessed various apps and their operations in this domain and termed them outstanding, stating that most difficult issues amazingly simplified through the apps. The delegation was informed that an application named ‘RASTA’ was being launched to streamline the way citizens interact with the Traffic Department and perform various functions such as applying for a driving license, live traffic advisory, route planner and for the first time online driving test from anywhere using their mobiles. The members of the delegation were told about the e-challan application that traffic wardens would use to issue electronic penalty tickets on various traffic violations. Rai Ejaz CTO said that a test run of the application would take place on The Mall Road tomorrow (Sunday) prior to its formal launch.
Published in Daily Times, July 22nd , 2017.