IIIT Hyderabad Develops 'Dashcam' To Catch Rule Violators On The Move
Researchers from IIIT Hyderabad develop an AI-powered Dashcam for police vehicles to detect traffic violations on the move and issue e-challans automatically.
Published : July 23, 2026 at 5:32 PM IST
Hyderabad: Think you can escape a traffic challan by avoiding cameras at junctions? Not anymore. Researchers at the Applied AI Research Centre of IIIT Hyderabad have developed an AI-powered 'Dashcam' that can detect traffic violations while moving on city roads, making it much harder for offenders to go unnoticed.
The compact camera, powered by Artificial Intelligence and specialised software, is mounted on traffic police patrol vehicles. As these vehicles move through the city, the Dashcam automatically captures the registration numbers of vehicles violating traffic rules, including riders travelling without helmets.
The captured vehicle details are then matched with the databases of the Hyderabad Traffic Police and the Transport Department. Once the violation is verified, the information is automatically sent to the traffic police e-challan system, which generates a challan and sends the fine details directly to the vehicle owner's registered mobile number.
To assess the system's effectiveness, IIIT Hyderabad researchers installed Dashcams on the windshields of four Innova patrol vehicles operating in four different traffic police station limits across Hyderabad. The pilot project was monitored for six months, during which the AI system reportedly delivered encouraging results.
According to Prithvi Jonnada of the Applied AI Research Centre, each Dashcam costs only Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 to manufacture, making it a cost-effective solution for large-scale deployment. Based on feedback from the traffic police, researchers also fitted three AI cameras on two-wheelers as part of a pilot project to detect violations in areas where larger patrol vehicles may not have easy access.
If implemented on a wider scale, the AI-powered Dashcam system could significantly strengthen traffic enforcement by identifying violations in real time, even on roads without fixed surveillance cameras. It is expected to improve road safety, enhance compliance with traffic rules, and reduce dependence on manual enforcement.