As per Society of India Automobile Manufacturers, the total sale of passenger and commercial vehicles for the year ending 2009-10, was nearly 25 lakh.
This growth has triggered off roaring business in an auxiliary market - ‘Car Theft’. As per the grey market estimates, the stolen car industry generates a revenue of over Rs.200 crores, making automobile thefts one of the most flourishing businesses in recent times.
As the number of cars sold in the country scales the 200,000 a year mark, car thefts are keeping pace, with Delhi topping the charts for the highest number of cars thefts, followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Car owners in India now can heave a sigh of relief. They can make their cars “theft-proof” all by using Tcop. The breakthrough technology called “Tcop” has been brought to India by Bangalore-based iTrans Technologies. Unlike conventional security products provide keyless access to an automobile they do not protect against intrusion regardless of physical location.
The revolutionary technology enables the car security to on mobile phone, owner not only to be “alerted” when someone is trying to break-in but also “secure and manage” the car remotely.
According to Mr. Mallesh Reddy, CEO of iTrans Technologies, the GSM-based technology is user-friendly. A Vodafone SIM card is activated in a Tcop and installed inside car, which on detection of intrusion (theft or abuse) informs the car owner and also has capabilities to make calls to mobiles, irrespective of the telecom service provider. “Tcop” establishes a two way communication between a car and the car owner’s mobile phone. The “tiny” device can be fitted to any make of car. The location awareness fature is enabled by a GSM triangulation methodology which track the vehicle based on cell site information.
Mr. Mallesh Reddy said that the device had many features – owners can send an SMS from their mobile phone to “Tcop” to obtain the current location of the car - 24x7/365 days; can locate their car in a parking lot by sending a siren on/off feature; and owner can authorise up to 50 other people who can track the location of the car.
If the car is stolen and driven away, the owner can send SMS to the device which can trigger siren in the car to disturb the car thief and also attract the attention of other road users. The technology also enables the owner to retrieve the route taken by the stolen car in the past 72 hours which could help further in tracing the car.
Mr. Mallesh Reddy said that “Tcop” can be used in various situations requiring current location awareness. It also comes handy to monitor the usage pattern of a car when there are multiple drivers using the car.
Product support, first of its kind in automobile industry a built-in microprocessor with embedded self-diagnostic software programme helps to manage and rectify any issue in the Tcop in case of malfunction without physical person intervention.
Currently iTrans sold around 600 devices in Bangalore from couple of months. The company has already tied up with car dealers for fitting of the devices.
