Cop Plans To Tackle Bypass Car Rush On Wedding Days | Kolkata News

Kolkata: Kolkata Traffic Police on Tuesday passed the wedding-day test on EM Bypass as it successfully managed to keep the traffic moving despite hundreds of vehicles heading to various banquet halls dotting the eastern corridor.
According to cops, a couple of experiments are expected to keep them in good stead on February 25, another mega wedding day when multiple weddings are scheduled across all 24 halls in the area.
TOI had reported in its Tuesday edition how a study carried out by the Beliaghata and the Tiljala traffic guards found these marriage halls — located within 5km on EM Bypass between Panchannagram and Bengal Chemical Crossing — are adding over 6,000 cars to the Maa flyover-Hyatt traffic .
“We carried out a real-time check of traffic situation at least a kilometer away from the trouble-zone besides monitoring CCTV footage. This helped to take some quick decisions from the control room. In addition, we changed signal timings and increased waiting time for cross traffic movement. The twin plans worked,” said an officer from the Beliaghata guard. The police also put in extra men at important crossings to ensure that no jaywalking slowed down vehicles.
A few external factors helped too, conceded cops. “There were fewer number of office vehicles from Sector V and even fewer from the other sectors of Salt Lake. The protests in the city saw people leaving for their homes early. The fact that it was a reception day (Boubhat) meant that unlike weddings, these events could be staggered beyond Tuesday. The Covid fear earlier had seen receptions being cut down to smaller numbers and people found little time at the fag end of their planning to expand their guest lists. All these helped to keep the volume of traffic down,” said an officer.