Delhi is ready to revamp its traffic with a “brain.” The Union Cabinet has approved an ambitious Rs 1,789.52 crore Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS), which promises to bring artificial intelligence, adaptive traffic signals, automated enforcement and real-time congestion monitoring to the capital’s roads. It will also use cameras and automated systems to detect violations such as red-light jumping, speeding, wrong-way driving, illegal parking, and not wearing helmets or seat belts. The system will cover 42 traffic corridors and is expected to be implemented in three phases over 24 months. But an important question remains: will this solve the traffic chaos in Delhi?
At the onset, it certainly sounds like an ambitious, optimistic, and well-structured plan to address the traffic menace the city is suffering from. However, what Delhi faces now is less a traffic management problem and more a traffic-discipline problem, with ongoing degeneration. The traffic rules have remained nothing more than suggestions; with the red light only being interpreted as a colour, stop lines are hardly prevalent, helmets becoming a rare sight, not just for pillion riders but even the drivers, wrong-side driving no longer an offence, and parking being in any convenient space. Two-wheelers weave through traffic, pedestrians cross roads wherever they find a gap, and e-rickshaws add another layer to the problem, with no guidelines in their regulation, count, or rules, causing abrupt traffic movement. Their supply substantially exceeds the capacity of roads, and they tend to cluster and compete for passengers, creating bottlenecks. Unregulated operation and a lack of official human intervention have led to further deterioration of the situation.
Delhi’s rapid urbanisation and continuing migration have added enormous pressure to an already stretched transport system. The number of vehicles has expanded much faster than the road space available to accommodate them. Delhi has around 71 lakh active registered vehicles, according to recent government-linked reporting.
Delhi’s traffic problem is increasingly being treated as a technology problem when, at its core, it is a governance and civic-discipline problem.
A major reason behind the rising indiscipline is the replacement of human authority, or traffic police, with a mechanised system on Delhi roads. Low civic sense among the commuters cannot be handled without effective enforcement of traffic rules by personnel, with a fear of spontaneous penalisation of defaulters, instead of later online intimation. The purpose of a traffic challan, after all, is not the collection of fines, but prevention of violation altogether.
The proposed ITMS is therefore welcome, but it must not become an excuse for reducing human presence. In fact, AI and human enforcement should work together. The cameras can detect; the system can analyse; signals can adapt; but trained personnel must remain available to intervene.
This also has a strong economic relevance. India continues to face the challenge of creating productive employment for a large and young workforce. So while there is not just a need, but a necessity for human intervention, the technology should work to complement it to make it more efficient and not replace it. The ultimate challenge facing Delhi is not whether a machine can identify a traffic violation. It is whether a citizen will obey a rule even when there is no machine watching.
Delhi does not need to choose between technology and manpower. It needs to use technology to deploy manpower intelligently. A smart Delhi cannot simply be a city where traffic is watched more intelligently. It must be a city where citizens drive more responsibly.
Conclusion
The ITMS must therefore be seen as an instrument of reform, not a substitute for governance. Its success will depend on how effectively technology is integrated with human supervision, strict enforcement and public accountability. Delhi also needs a comprehensive policy to regulate e-rickshaws, improve pedestrian infrastructure, rationalise parking and strengthen public transport.
Equally important is a sustained campaign to rebuild civic responsibility among road users. Traffic discipline cannot be outsourced to cameras, algorithms or automated challans. It requires consistent enforcement and a change in public behaviour.
The Government must ensure that the substantial investment delivers measurable improvements in mobility, road safety and commuting time rather than merely creating another sophisticated monitoring network.
Ultimately, a city becomes smart not when its roads are monitored by artificial intelligence, but when its citizens demonstrate the intelligence to respect rules. Delhi needs smarter traffic management, but, above all, more responsible road users.
Kajleen is an assistant professor at Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Delhi University; Views presented are personal.