Bareilly police use AI to count kanwariyas in real time
Meerut : Bareilly Zone Police have launched a pilot artificial intelligence-based system to estimate the number of kanwariyas in real time using live CCTV feeds from nine cities during the Kanwar yatra this year.
Bareilly Zone ADGP Ramit Sharma, an IIT Kanpur alumnus, said the initiative could eventually be expanded to strengthen traffic management and crowd control. We will draft a traffic management model integrating this programme,” Sharma told TOI. Police said the technology could help authorities make faster decisions on crowd management, traffic regulation, route diversions and deployment of personnel. Sharma said the platform could subsequently be trained to identify different types of vehicles, including cars, motorcycles, buses, trucks and special Kanwar vehicles. He said such a system could reduce the police’s dependence on manual data collection and provide more timely inputs for managing large crowds and traffic during major religious gatherings.
The system, developed using the existing CCTV network and in-house resources, is being operated as a Python programme from the Zonal Command and Control Centre at Bareilly Police Lines. “As of now, it has turned out to be successful, and soon we will launch it for a traffic management system. The pilot was developed at no cost using existing infrastructure, basic coding and in-house expertise. It could also eventually be used to identify accident-prone areas and predict potential risks.