Public vehicle tracking set to become mandatory from 2018

The government has recently passed a regulation that all public transport vehicles with over six seater capacity will have fitments of location & Vehicle tracking devices and one or more emergency buttons effective from April 1, 2018.

It’s regulation that has come in quietly unlike the hubbub over the BS4 migration. The government has recently passed a regulation that all public transport vehicles with over six seater capacity will have fitments of location & Vehicle tracking devices and one or more emergency buttons.

This new regulation will come into effect from April 1, 2018 and will include not only state transport buses but also smaller vehicles like school vans, ambulance and other special purpose public carriers. This plus a separate regulation on speed control alarms for private vehicles will drive the new age norms in 2018, said auto industry experts.

Public vehicle tracking set to become mandatory from 2018

Public vehicle tracking set to become mandatory from 2018

Already all commercial vehicles are fitted with a speed limiting mechanism, in force since October 2016. ” The government is currently debating whether private vehicles can be fitted with an alarm which will go off once the driver crosses a prescribed speed limit,” said a senior SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) official.

The vehicle tracking regulation will not only cover newly manufactured vehicles but also existing vehicles in the national pool. “Existing vehicles will also need the GPS vehicle tracking device so they will go for a retro fitments,” said Amit Dakshini, Group Chief Strategy Officer at Pricol.

“The idea is that the vehicle tracking system will give better control to authorities and fleet owners, telling them the speed of the vehicle, the route taken, diversions etc and so it will be populated in as many vehicles as possible,” he added. Already number of truck makers offer the GPS system depending on customer demands.
Big fleet operators, for instance, are now demanding GPS fitted trucks in their fleet for better regulation. As for the speed limiting device, that too may soon be made mandatory for the vehicle pool as well. “There has been discussion about making the speed limiting device mandatory for all trucks plying on Indian roads and may eventually be passed by Supreme Court as a judgement on safety grounds,” said Dakshini.
Telematics devices are still in their nascent stage of market penetration in India but given the regulatory drive it is expected to see growth. “From an OE fitted perspective, penetration levels (for telematic devices) are less than 5% in India which is expected to reach 15% by 2020,” he said. Pricol, which currently supplies telematics solutions to companies like JCB, John Deere, CNH and Tata Motors, is looking to Rs 100 crore from its telematics business by this fiscal end and triple that in the next 2-3 years.

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