The Meghalaya government is in the process of implementing the Automotive Industry Standard 140 also known as AIS 140 tracking system for public transport vehicles in the State.
The implementation of the AIS 140 compliant vehicle tracking system has been made mandatory for all public transport and commercial vehicles by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in India.
According to official sources, the State Transport Department will engage public sector undertakings (PSUs) or government agencies for undertaking the implementation of AIS 140 based vehicle tracking project in Meghalaya.
Considering the sensitivity and criticality of the application and data handled in this project, the department is considering only PSUs or any government organisation for the implementation of the project.
The Transport Department said that tracking the public transport vehicles in the State will be part of the implementation of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways guidelines.
The objective of the project is to introduce a tracking system for continuous monitoring of public transport vehicles for better road safety and better support for enforcement services.
Sources also said that an Expression of Interest (EOI) has been floated for the purpose by the department.
The Commissioner of Transport shall constitute a committee for the selection of the agency for the implementation of the project. The agencies qualifying in the EOI shall be given a scope of work by the department, based on which the agency will have to give a detailed presentation of the proposed solution with a techno-commercial proposal.
The committee will carry out a detailed evaluation of all the technical and commercial parameters of every proposal. Based on the evaluation of the committee, the Commissioner of Transport shall identify an agency for the implementation of the project in Meghalaya.
The major works involved in the implementation are deployment of the AIS 140 compliance backend software for tracking and integrating it with Emergency Response System of Meghalaya Police, integration with command and control center, customisation of application based on the requirements of Transport Department, training of all stakeholders, implementation of Vehicle Location Tracking Device and SMS packages, etc.
Further, there will be a monitoring system integrated to the software for real time plotting of the vehicles on a map. Monitoring centres can view this map displayed on a web browser.