Bengaluru Traffic Police Museum

Bengaluru Traffic Police Museum was inaugurated on January 29^th 2025. This museum will give you a sneak peak into how traffic policing evolved in Bengaluru over the years.

Museum Timings – 10 am to 5 pm

Entry Fee – None

Location – Located on the first floor of the Traffic Management Centre building, Infantry road.

 

The moment you enter this huge Traffic Management building you will be amazed to see interesting murals on the walls related to Traffic rules, Bengaluru roads and many more.

We walked towards the building reception and a lady traffic cop directed us to the first floor for the museum. Even when you take steps to the museum up the first floor, you will find interesting art work on the walls ensuring that you are in the right place.

This museum is divided into various sections like Uniforms, Signaling, Awareness, Violation and many more aspects around the traffic management. There are lot of exhibits right from some vintage traffic equipments like walkie talkie’s to Doppler instrument. There are some old and new Traffic police uniforms too which will help you understand how their daily attire evolved with time. Every section has an audio visual system where in you can chose a language, pick the phone and watch as the movie about that section is being played.

There is also a portion of the section dedicated to constable Marichikaiah Thimmaiah(Commonly known as Meese Thimmaiah). He is believed to have stood at the same signal post every day for 19 years, using hand signals to direct traffic—until he died in 1995 while trying to save a woman and her child from being run over.

Signaling also evolved from hand signaling to the latest AI-powered traffic signals. These AI signals analyze the vehicle density in real-time and dynamically adjust traffic light timings to improve movement.

Traffic enforcement was done physically by stopping the violator for committing a traffic violation. For example – Policeman blackening the headlights of a car. In order to ease the process of paying the fines, mobile courts were set up where in the magistrate would review the case and impose suitable fines.

Then gradually traffic enforcement also evolved with time. 

I didn’t know Bengaluru had a “Traffic Park” too. This was started by BTP(Bangalore Traffic Police) in 2003 located near St Mark’s circle which aimed to teach the basics of road safety and traffic rules to students across the city. This park consists of miniatures of traffic junctions and road signs as well for educational purposes. Interesting – isn’t it? . Now I have one more place to visit next time I am near St Mark’s circle.

There is also a huge wall depicting Bengaluru Traffic Junctions – Then and Now. It was so nostalgic. I was amazed to see the old black and white photographs with less vehicles as opposed to the current day traffic chaos on roads.

An Experience Center also has been set up here which says “Welcome to the future”. There are some stimulators, quizzes and games to bring in the awareness of traffic regulations. Also there is a display of ASTRAM (Actionable Intelligence for Sustainable Traffic Management )mobile app introduced for commuters which offers real-time traffic updates, accident and violation reporting features, and the ability to pay traffic fines directly through the app.

There was a traffic police person in his uniform who took us around and was happy to answer our questions.  It took us around an hour to explore this museum and its totally worth it to understand the efforts BTP team has been making to ensure we travel hassle-free in our city.