Bengaluru police turn tech-savvy to manage celebration crowds this New Year

With New Year celebrations expected to draw lakhs of people to MG Road, Brigade Road, Koramangala​ and Indiranagar, the Bengaluru City Police are chalking out what they claim as a technology-driven crowd management plan the city has ever seen so far. 

After the stampede that occurred during the RCB victory celebrations, the government and the police department are on heightened alert. Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh, told DH that extensive inter-departmental coordination, advanced surveillance tools, and real-time analytics are being deployed as a part of the measures. He said the idea is to “party with responsibility.”

Another senior officer, who is in-charge of overseeing the arrangement, told DH, “We will deploy more than 25 drones across key locations on New Year’s Eve to strengthen aerial surveillance and crowd management. The Law and Order division will operate 16–17 drones, and BTP will use 10 drones to monitor major junctions and celebration hotspots. The drones will track crowd movement, congestion points, emergency access routes, sudden surges, and isolated disturbances. Some of the devices are equipped with thermal imaging, enabling effective monitoring after midnight when visibility drops,” the officer told DH.

He added, “Compared to last year, we are increasing CCTV coverage by at least 10% across MG Road, Brigade Road, Church Street, St Mark’s Road, Indiranagar, Koramangala 80 Feet Road and major entry and exit points. We have also asked private establishments to link their CCTV feeds to our network during the time for better monitoring. This gives us live visibility across interior lanes and improves response.”

The police have integrated AI-based fire detection sensors into surveillance network to alert control rooms instantly in case of fire or smoke, ensuring faster response during emergencies.

Police are particularly focusing on preventing harassment of vulnerable groups. “Women and children must feel safe. There’s zero tolerance towards harassment, drunk nuisance and crowd misbehaviour, ” they said,

Highlights - Other measures Drones, some equipped with thermal imaging, to monitor movement patterns, choke points, emergency access routes, crowd surges and isolated disturbances. AI-enabled sensors to detect sparks, fire-like anomalies and smoke. If anything appears in a frame, the system alerts instantly, and police coordinate with the fire brigade. The command centre helps analyse obstructions like blocked pathways, illegally parked vehicles, unauthorised vendor clusters, disruptions in camera visibility and crowd pockets forming near bars.  Additional patrolling teams, women protection squads, quick response teams, anti-harassment units and special traffic detachments will be deployed.

Assessing changing crowd patterns 

The police have started using mechanisms to assess the changing patterns of crowds in different places. “The nature of the crowd is very different in each location. On MG Road–Brigade Road the crowd is mostly first-time visitors and onlookers who come to see the gathering more out of curiosity. The crowd at Koramangala behave differently. They are largely tech employees residents of PGs and younger groups from the IT corridor. Their movement patterns timing and density are not the same as those in the other areas. This will help us draw up a strategy for crowd control” the officer explained.

How colour-coded alerts help

One of the biggest development this year is the use of heat-map technology to measure crowd density in real-time. “We analyse the number of heads visible in each frame. When density crosses safe limits the zone becomes a hotspot. Colour-coded alerts help us respond quickly — green for free movement yellow for moderate congestion dark orange when it approaches unsafe limits and red when it becomes critical. Once an area turns red we stop inflow and divert groups stagger movement and deploy additional personnel. We have also identified several high-risk points like the MG Road–Brigade Road junction Cauvery Emporium Junction St Mark’s–Brigade Road intersections Church Street entries Koramangala 80 Feet Road and the Sony World signal area” the officer explained.  “We used heat maps last year as well but the accuracy and deployment strategy have improved significantly.”