Vehicle Location Tracking Devices and Emergency Buttons to be mandatory

Why in News?

  • The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has mandated that all new public service vehicles except auto rickshaws and eRickshaws, registered on and after 1st January 2019, will have to be equipped with Vehicle Location Tracking (VLT) with emergency buttons.
  • In case of older public service vehicles –those registered up to 31″December, 2018, the respective State/ UT Governments will notify the date by which these vehicles have to install them.

VLT Command Centres:

  • Command and Control Centres will be setup by the State or VLT manufacturers or any other agency authorised by the State Government.
  • These centres will provide interface to various stakeholders such as state emergency response centre, the transport department or RTOs, Transport Ministry, device manufacturers and their authorised dealers, testing agencies, permit holders, etc.
  • These centres will also provide feed to the VAHAN data base or the relevant data base of the State with regard to the over speeding, device health status.
  • The details of each VLT device will be uploaded on the VAHAN database by the VLT device manufacturer using its secured authenticated access.

More thrust on VLTs:

  • The VLT device manufacturers or their authorised dealers will install the VLT devices in public service vehicles and register the devices along with details of vehicle on the corresponding backend systems in real-time.
  • The public service vehicle owners have to ensure that the VLT devices installed in their vehicles are in working condition and regularly send required data to the corresponding backend system through cellular connectivity.
  • VLT device manufacturers will get their devices tested for conformity of production every year after the first certification, from the testing agencies referred to in rule 126 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules,1989.
  • The State or Union Territories will publish Internet Protocol address (IP address) and Short Message Service Gateway (SMS gateway) details of their respective emergency response system.
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