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2020 One Show - Creative Use of Data

The Punishing Signal

Agency FCBIndia Advertising LLP / Mumbai + FCB Global / New York

Client Mumbai Police
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Annual ID

OS_CU20_028M

About the Work

70% of noise on Mumbai’s roads is due to excessive honking. This hugely disrupts citizens’ physical & mental health. After many attempts to curb it, Mumbai Police did what fines couldn’t. They changed behaviour with a sense of humour and humanity. They internally developed an innovative system, in collaboration with CMS Systems and the BMC. Special decibel meters were rigged to select traffic signals. Each meter had a uni-directional mike that isolated honking frequencies in real-time and relayed it to the meter. The meter was coded to analyse the fed honking level and relayed it to the Digital LED Display for all to see. If honking decibels spiked above 85 dB (dangerous), the meter also sent an instruction to the countdown timer to reset. Making the signal stay red longer, and the impatient motorists, wait longer. Thus each signal was trialled as THE PUNISHING SIGNAL. A video of this was cut with a fun, local flavour, and posted on Mumbai Police’s official Twitter handle. It went viral and got global coverage. Most importantly, noise pollution dipped due to this combination of awareness and humorous enforcement. Resulting in plans to implement more of these in Mumbai, and 3 other Indian cities.