Bengaluru City Police leverages AI to determine bursting of crackers, bring down air pollution down

According to the SC order, citizens are prohibited from bursting crackers after 10 pm and so far, the police had to depend only on complaints from the public to crack down on people bursting crackers even after 10 pm.

Bengaluru: The Bengaluru City Police have successfully leveraged Artificial Intelligence (AI) to determine incidents of bursting of crackers in the city. Over 2,000 such incidents were identified in five days during Deepavali and 41 per cent of these incidents were recorded after 10 pm.

The initiative leveraged the city’s extensive Safe City surveillance network, comprising cameras and Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) infrastructure. A Firecracker Detection Video AI app analysed live streams from over 200 existing cameras located in high-density residential and commercial zones such as Srirampuram, KR Market, HSR Layout, Haralur, and Marathahalli.

“The AI algorithms were designed to detect firecracker flashes, smoke, and crowd hyperactivity in real time, automatically generating alert packets containing precise location, timestamp, and visual evidence and automatically transmitting to ICCC and field units via WhatsApp. These alerts were transmitted instantly to the Command Control through WhatsApp, enabling police operators to verify events and coordinate immediate field responses,” Kuldeep Kumar Jain, Joint Commissioner of Police (Administration), told DH.

The areas were selected based on high population density as well as earlier complaints of large scale cracker burning even after 10 pm.

According to the Supreme Court order, citizens are prohibited from bursting crackers after 10 pm and so far, the police had to depend only on complaints from the public to crack down on people bursting crackers even after 10 pm.

“The Hoysala teams would reach as and when the complaints were received. But with the AI module integrated with our cameras, the Hoysala teams directly get an alert as soon as such an incident is identified. This helps act fast and prevent further bursting of crackers,” added Kuldeep.

The initiative has helped the police to proactively prevent large scale bursting of crackers after 10 pm and this in turn has also brought down noise and air pollution significantly, the police opined.