2010 court order on GPS in buses still to be implemented

Incidents like the bus gangrape would perhaps not have occurred had the Delhi government strictly implemented a 2010 Delhi High Court order to ensure that all public transport buses in the Capital are fitted with global positioning systems. Harish V Nair reports.

Incidents like the bus gangrape would perhaps not have occurred had the Delhi government strictly implemented a 2010 Delhi High Court order to ensure that all public transport buses in the Capital are fitted with global positioning systems.

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Six men raped a woman for forty minutes on the private bus that was not on a permitted route and violated plying time rules. The bus was not fitted with a GPS.

"It is important to note that in most cases where public transport vehicles are involved in crimes, they are found to be plying mostly after permitted hours or on unsanctioned routes," said lawyer AJ Bhambani, the lawyer who is assisting the court overseeing measures being adopted to enforce discipline among bus operators.

"GPSs monitored by bus owners and police would go a long way in ensuring that such vehicles are only used for the purpose they are meant for. The evidence would be especially vital for investigation purpose," he added.

GPSs were made mandatory in radio taxis in the Capital after a driver sexually assaulted a foreigner in a car two years ago. No major crimes involving radio taxis were reported after that.

On April 16, 2010, in the first major step towards enforcing road discipline among "killer" Bluelines , DTC buses and private chartered buses, the transport department had told the court that it had decided to install GPSs in 1,000 buses every month. This had meant that all 8,500 buses on Delhi's roads were to have GPSs by December 2010.

A GPS allows real-time tracking of a vehicle's movement by a control room.