KOCHI: With incidents of overspeeding by private buses becoming a daily affair in Kochi, questions loom large over the effectiveness of the bus time-punching cabins, meant to check the over speeding in the city.According to Traffic officials, over 55 cases of overspeeding have been registered within the city limits from October 1 to October 23 alone.“Private buses are frequently caught for overspeeding and rash driving.The road from Edappally to High Court and Sahodaran Ayyappan Road are strictly monitored round-the-clock,” said K S Baby Vinod, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Traffic (East).Even private bus operators accept that manipulation is easy with the computerised punching cabins, which were introduced in the city in 2008.One of the tricks that drivers use to “stay on schedule” is to make up for overspeeding by stopping or slowing down for some time before reaching the punching cabin.“Only licenced bus conductors are supposed to do the punching. But nobody cares to check whether the conductor is licenced or not.So, anybody can handle the card and punch at the required time,” said a private bus operator.“The punching system can easily be manipulated. No matter how strict the monitoring is, the offenders always find a way around. The best way to check rash driving and overspeeding is by installing a GPS tracking system in all the private buses.We are also planning to install traffic cameras to monitor the vehicles,” Road Transport Officer T J Thomas.
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