Lahore Ring Road: New traffic police force to start by end of year

[Salman]

LAHORE:

A Ring Road Traffic Police force of around 300 will likely become operational by the end of the year, said Lahore Ring Road Authority Superintendent of Police Salman Ali Khan.

The force is being modelled on the National Highways and Motorways Police and the 300 wardens are currently undergoing training in traffic management at the Motorways Police Training School, the SP told The Express Tribune on Monday.

The force will not just implement traffic laws on the Ring Road, but also educate commuters, he said.

The LRRA force will initially have 36 motorcycles and 10 cars for patrolling. It will also have help vehicles to assist commuters, a tow vehicle, a ‘mobile workshop vehicle’, a fuelling vehicle and a fork lifter. A mobile canteen will also be run to provide the LRRA police meals.

The wardens will have brown uniforms, similar to the NHMP, said the SP. He said that the inspector general of Punjab Police and the chief minister had approved the design. The IG will have operational control of the force, while the LRRA will have administrative control.

SP Khan said that long work hours was one of the main reasons for the poor performance of the police and so the new force would work only eight hours a day, with one weekly holiday.

He said that the 300 wardens had been selected from among Punjab Traffic Police wardens who had applied for the posts. He said that LRRA wardens would have a 25 per cent higher salary.

The SP said that initially, the force’s main aim would be to educate commuters on traffic laws and safe driving practices on the Ring Road. He said that they would start issuing traffic tickets later on, but no ticketing targets would be set.

He said that the help vehicles would give commuters a sense of security. “If a car breaks down, there will be a mobile workshop to repair it. A commuter help vehicle will be able to drop commuters at their houses in the city,” he said.

The mobile fuelling vehicle will assist commuters who have run out of petrol.

An official in the Lahore traffic police said that all the wardens lost to the Ring Road force had been replaced, so there would be no difference to traffic enforcement in the rest of Lahore.