Pune: Pune resident Ravi Kumar, who runs an electric bicycle company, loves to lead by example and rides to work every day. But, every time he sets off, his wife has her heart in her throat.
On the city’s chaotic roads, driving, riding or even walking safely is a challenge. Wagholi, where Kumar lives and through which the Pune-Ahmednagar highway passes, sees particularly bad traffic and plenty of driving violations such as signal-jumping and lane indiscipline.
It was an accident on this stretch last December that spurred Kumar to action. A dumper truck had run over a family sleeping on the pavement, killing two toddlers and a man, and injuring six others.
It led Kumar to launch a platform where traffic violators could be exposed and penalised.
“That’s when the idea of VahanScore hit me,” Kumar told ThePrint. “I thought, let us start a platform where we can publicly shame all these people who drive recklessly.”
VahanScore is a citizen-driven “traffic violation database that scores your vehicle like a credit score” to increase accountability and make roads safer. Its website says the vision is to bring the road accident count down by half in the next five years.
“VahanScore is all about driving sense. Your vehicle has to behave in a certain fashion whether it is on the road or off the road,” said Kumar, who was born to an army officer and grew up in the regimental cantonments of Barrackpore, Jhansi and Danapur.
A mechanical engineer from the Army Institute of Pune, Kumar worked at Tata AutoComp Systems and Dassault Systemes before founding the electric mobility start-up VIR Bike. As a creator of electric bikes, he has a special interest in road safety, he said.
While the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) has an app, currently under revamp, where people can upload information on vehicles violating traffic rules, VahanScore goes a step further. It not only puts this information on a public forum, but also collects violation data for a vehicle and gives it a score.
The is an all-India initiative, so traffic offences committed across states can be reported and collated. RTOs and NGOs have attempted to launch similar platforms across India, but most don’t blatantly follow the “name and shame” model that VahanScore does, according to Kumar.
Kumar pulled together four developers to build the platform and it was launched within a week of the dumper accident. He pitched his idea to the NVIDIA Inception accelerator programme that supports startups, as well as researchers and software partners in advancing innovations. It helped him secure credits for Amazon Web Services and keep costs to a minimum.
“The world conspires when you want to do something good. Four successful developers are giving their time (to VahanScore) pro bono on weekends. We have close to 450 users and volunteers now who report and filter violations on the website,” he said.
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How does it work?
Citizens can report violations by uploading pictures or videos either on vahanscore.com or simply tag VahanScore on X. They need to fill in details such as location, vehicle number and type of violation. Once submitted, the vehicle is added to the database and given a score based on its violations.
A list of offenders on the website has photos, along with vehicle numbers and description of the violation. Users who upload on the website can also post the same on X, tagging the city traffic police handle.
“Yesterday, we received 153 complaints. It is all coming from people’s frustration. There are people who really want to change the scenario. Once you give a convenient way, many others will also start coming forward,” Kumar said, adding that they get 40 to 50 complaints per day on average.
According to him, around 65 percent of valid complaints result in challans being issued for the vehicle involved if the city police are tagged. This is because the Pune police often post challan numbers in response to complaints on X.
Speaking to ThePrint, Raja Subramani, a business analyst living in Baner area of Pune, said: “I used to report violations on MahaTraffic App provided by the RTO. Those photos remained in my phone and I now upload them on VahanScore, so there is a dual record. Uploading to X has the added advantage that the Pune police reply at times with the challan number. Then you know how much fine was levied.”
Subramani spends 15 minutes walking to office from home. In three months, he said he has chalked up a tally of 600 traffic rule violations during his daily commute.
“We seem to be colour-blind when it comes to observing a traffic signal,” Kumar said. “Breaking a signal and opposite side driving are the two biggest offences being reported in Pune. Unfortunately, these have become a norm. Now, the higher fines introduced offer some hope.”
He added that users of his website also search for their own vehicle numbers on it to check if they appear there.
What about privacy?
Regarding the idea that his platform may be violating privacy norms by making public pictures of vehicles and number plates, Kumar, who also has a degree in law, cited a Supreme Court judgement of August 2019.
In the case Ritesh Sinha Vs State of Uttar Pradesh, the court observed that “the fundamental right to privacy cannot be construed as absolute and must bow down to compelling public interest”.
“For any offences that are public in nature, right to privacy will not come into play,” Kumar asserted.
Speaking to ThePrint, technology and privacy lawyer Rajas Pingle also said that “the right to privacy, as recognised by the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India, is not an unqualified right”.
“In the case of traffic violations, these are acts committed in full public view, with direct consequences for other road users. Documenting and sharing such violations, especially by civilian initiatives, is not only a form of social accountability but also a reinforcement of democratic participation in upholding the rule of law. There is a qualitative difference between surveillance by the state and citizen-driven efforts to promote civic responsibility,” the lawyer explained.
What about fake complaints?
Kumar told ThePrint that complaints are reviewed on VahanScore and the ones considered incorrect are deleted. Users are validated with a mobile number and OTP. A warning is issued in case of incorrect reporting and repeat offenders are debarring from using the platform.
He next plans to expand the reach of his platform in Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Delhi and Mumbai, where the setup to filter posts and tag traffic police is yet to be established.
A VahanScore mobile application is also under development using AI and Optical Character Recognition technology. Users will be able to just record a video, and the application will find out the offence and post it on X. It is set to release in mid-2025, Kumar said, explaining features are being added to display challan number along with the vehicle number of violator.
Kumar actually dreams of a Vietnam-style system in India, he told ThePrint.
Under new rules in Vietnam earlier this year, fines on traffic violators have been hiked, much like India has done. Further, citizens who report a verified traffic offence can earn 10 percent of the fine imposed. Mohandas Pai’s post to the Bengaluru police highlighting this initiative gathered almost 15,000 views, showing interest from citizens impacted by traffic woes.
“Kids will earn pocket money by reporting traffic offences, thereby improving the traffic situation in our cities,” Kumar said.
Ranjeet Dighe is an intern with ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
A much needed initiative for India where traffic violations are so rampant. Excellent. But Police should start enforcement of traffic violations strictly with higher fines over the entire country
Opposite side driving, violating no entry roads, breaking traffic signals, 3 persons on a bike, overloading luggage and items on a 2 wheeler without proper safety concerns and using beam headlights at night are the most traffic violations observed.