Cops ban goods carriers during peak hours on weekends, holidays.
Cops ban goods carriers during peak hours on weekends, holidays.
The state highway police has, with immediate effect, banned triple-axle and multi-axle vehicles on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway during the morning and evening peak hours on weekends and extended public holidays to ensure a smooth commute for the common man. Triple-axle and multi-axle vehicles are goods carriers.
Additional DGP R.K. Padmanabha announced the plan at a press conference on Wednesday. “The plan is to not allow these heavy loading trucks or vehicles during the weekend or extended holidays when the common man is travelling to see to it that the traffic flow is smooth on the Expressway,” said Mr Padmanabha.
In a move that the highway police calls ‘Time Sharing’, a timetable has been laid out detailing the time during which trucks that carry goods or heavy machinery will not be allowed on the highway.
According to the plan, traffic moving from Mumbai to Pune during peak hours on holidays via Khalapur Toll Plaza and Urse Toll Plaza will be closed to triple-axle and multi-axle vehicles on Friday evenings as well as the evenings of extended holidays from 5 pm to 8 pm and on Saturday mornings from 8 am to noon.
Traffic from Pune to Mumbai will be banned in the same section from Sunday evening or the last evening of the extended holiday from 4 pm to 8 pm and on Monday mornings or the mornings after an extended holiday from 6 am to 9 am.
Mr Padmanabha said that the highway police’s drive to enforce traffic rules would be intensified for the next three months. For instance, heavy moving vehicles must take the left lane, light moving vehicles must stick to the middle lane, overtaking will be allowed only in the right lane and drivers who drive too slowly on this lane will be penalised.
The state highway police had also conducted recent traffic regulation drive on the Expressway with drones but saw very little success as compared to a similar exercise that saw the use of closed-circuit television cameras.
