Traffic police drive to encourage carpooling for kids’ commute – Times of India

Kolkata: The Kolkata Traffic Police has decided to reach out to students, parents and school administration to encourage carpooling.
In a meeting held at Lalbazar on Tuesday afternoon, a team of officers from Traffic Training School was assigned to top south Kolkata schools that they will visit and try to convince both the school authorities and the parents to use pool cars. The meeting was attended by the traffic guards that handle maximum school traffic in the city.
“Once the summer vacation is over, the drive to encourage the use of pool cars to commute between home and school will begin. A school near Gariahat will be the first stop of our drive. Our initial plan is to reach out to senior students, preferably Classes IX-XII, as they can manage themselves and their parents are likely to allow them to commute in pool cars. In the long run, students can act as our ambassadors and inspire middle and junior school students to do the same,” said an officer who attended the meeting. The traffic police sources said their presentation will talk not only of reduced costs for parents but also of “greater bond between students as they spend quality time together” along with the environmental benefits.
Once the presentations in Gariahat and Ballygunge schools are over by June, cops wish to target other schools, located in the Park Street-Park Circus area, from July.
The police action comes at a time when the city is all set to introduce an SOP for pool cars used in school commute to make them safe modes of transport and encourage more parents to avail of the service. The SOP on school pool cars has been an amalgamation of almost five years of study with over 7,000 parents as respondents.
“The SOP will have six stakeholders — parents, students, school authorities, cops, owners of the vehicles and the drivers,” said IIT professor and transport planner Bhargav Maitra, adding that stakeholders will be educated on their respective roles. The meeting at Lalbazar was held barely a few days after Kolkata Police commissioner Vineet Kumar Goyal visited individual traffic guards and took stock of the prevailing traffic situation.
Sources said one of the key areas, which the cops have been asked to work out, is an effective system to manage the traffic and also look at alternative parking sites for the cars that come to drop and pick up students.