Bengaluru buses to trial driver-assistance technology on 50 vehicles

The Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation plans to install Advanced Driver Assistance System technology on 50 buses in a pilot aimed at improving passenger and road safety. The corporation has invited tenders for the project. The selected agency will operate and maintain the complete system for two years after it goes live, under an all-inclusive monthly rental arrangement for each bus.

The equipment will include a road-facing camera, a driver-facing monitoring camera, two side cameras, sensors, an onboard controller, storage, software and connectivity. It will be designed to detect driver drowsiness, distraction, mobile-phone use and smoking. The road-facing system will identify forward-collision risks, lane departures and possible pedestrian collisions.

When a safety event is detected, the system will issue a real-time warning to the driver. BMTC officials will be able to monitor events through a central backend and dashboard. The system will also support integration with existing BMTC systems through application programming interfaces where the necessary interfaces and data are available.

A senior official said the corporation expected the technology to improve monitoring of driver behaviour and provide assistance during potentially dangerous situations. BMTC previously had similar equipment installed on 10 buses in 2023, but officials said that deployment was a private company’s corporate social responsibility initiative rather than a BMTC project. The new pilot is being implemented by the corporation itself.

Officials said BMTC would assess the pilot’s effectiveness before deciding whether to expand the technology to more buses.