A pilot deployment has already been completed along a 56.46km stretch of the Dwarka Expressway in the National Capital Region
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is set to deploy an advanced traffic management system (ATMS) across 30,000km of national highways over the next two to three years, in a bid to boost road safety and clamp down on traffic violations through real-time surveillance and automated enforcement.
According to senior NHAI officials, the new system will cover all national highways with four or more lanes, with real-time monitoring and immediate issuance of challans—electronic fines—for traffic offences. The move signals a major shift in the country’s approach to highway enforcement.
A pilot deployment has already been completed along a 56.46km stretch of the Dwarka Expressway in the National Capital Region. The corridor is the first to be equipped under a revised ATMS policy introduced in October 2023, which expands enforcement to 14 categories of violations, including triple riding, failure to wear helmets or seatbelts, wrong-lane driving, and even the presence of animals or pedestrians on the highway.
“The focus of the new policy is enforcement alongside surveillance,” said a senior NHAI official, speaking to journalists at the Dwarka Expressway’s command-and-control centre. “Earlier, NHAI was the end user. Now, enforcement agencies are fully integrated into the system.”
The system enables police departments to issue e-challans through an API-based mechanism that links the NHAI’s monitoring infrastructure with the National Informatics Centre and law enforcement. A violation detected by the ATMS is logged at the control centre, and then passed on to police for further action. On June 26, the Indian Highways Management Company Limited (IHMCL) formally requested the Delhi Police to begin issuing challans based on data from the Dwarka Expressway’s ATMS.
The surveillance set-up includes 110 pan-tilt-zoom cameras—installed every kilometre along the expressway—capable of real-time tracking of traffic conditions and equipped with basic AI to identify accidents and vehicle breakdowns. Another 15 gantry-mounted Video Incident Detection and Enforcement Systems (VIDES) scan the highway every 10km, flagging violations and streaming data to central servers and police units.
The ATMS also features radar-enabled LED speed displays every 20km that alert drivers if they exceed speed limits, alongside ten variable message signboards providing live updates on traffic, diversions and weather.
The system is already being extended to other major corridors, including the Delhi–Agra Expressway, the Lucknow Ring Road, and the Urban Extension Road 2—Delhi’s forthcoming third ring road. NHAI had previously equipped 20,000km with an older version of ATMS before the updated guidelines were introduced.
Officials say the integration of AI and automated enforcement tools marks a shift in India’s traffic management strategy—from passive surveillance to proactive violation detection and penalty issuance.
