PMPML to fit dash cameras in its 1,000 new CNG buses to help investigate accidents

Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML), the city's public transport service, plans to introduce video surveillance in its upcoming 1,000 CNG buses. The aim is to allow accidents involving buses to be investigated on the basis of solid evidence. The cameras will record the road ahead, and the footage will be preserved so that it can be reviewed whenever a bus is involved in a collision.

PMPML Chairman and Managing Director Mahesh Awhad said the device will first be installed in the new buses. The PMPML fleet currently has about 2,000 regular and AC buses, but they do not have a dash camera system. Fitting cameras in the new buses is an attempt to close this gap.

The proposed technology is said to keep the recording intact even if the camera breaks or comes off its mount in an accident. The footage will also be protected from being deleted or tampered with without permission. This would let officials see what happened before and during an incident.

Such recordings can serve as important evidence for police investigations, legal proceedings and the transport body's own internal review. They can help in understanding the sequence of events and assessing the circumstances of a collision, so that there is no need to depend only on statements gathered after the accident.

The network of cameras is also expected to send information to the PMPML control room. In this way, the recorded footage would be linked to the administration's daily monitoring. Officials would be able to examine the speed of the vehicle and road conditions at the time of an accident from this material.

According to Awhad, the information gathered will not be used only for individual accidents. By reviewing patterns and data on incidents, the body will be able to identify where traffic management and operational planning need improvement.

However, details of the camera models, recording capacity, how long the footage will be retained and the expenditure on procurement have not yet come out. The schedule for when the 1,000 CNG buses will join the fleet and when the camera system will become operational has also been described as not yet fixed.