Lahore Traffic Police will launch enforcement action from July 1, 2026 against all public transport vehicles including rickshaws, taxis, wagons, and online cab services that have failed to install the mandatory CM Punjab QR Panic Button, with Chief Traffic Officer Syed Abdul Rahim Shirazi confirming that all transport operators were given a deadline of June 30 to achieve compliance and that vehicles found without the required safety feature after the cutoff will face legal action.
To facilitate compliance ahead of the deadline, traffic police have installed QR panic button distribution points at 45 locations across the city, with dedicated enforcement teams deployed in every traffic sector and 12 teams assigned exclusively to monitoring rickshaws. More than 6,000 rickshaws have already been equipped with QR panic buttons during the ongoing compliance campaign, and four additional licensing centres have been established to speed up the registration process following requests from rickshaw unions.
The CM Punjab QR Panic Button System was developed by the Punjab Safe Cities Authority and integrates 12 safety features into a single scannable code, including emergency and video calling, live chat, location sharing, vehicle verification, driver and owner information, family sharing, and instant police response coordination. Vehicle owners and drivers can obtain the panic button free of charge through the Public Safety App or the PSCA’s official website. When a passenger scans the QR code inside a vehicle during an emergency, their live location and specific vehicle details are immediately transmitted to the police and the Punjab Safe Cities Authority, which then coordinates a rapid response to the alert. Passengers can also share trip details with family members at the start of their journey, allowing real-time safety monitoring by loved ones throughout the ride.
The Punjab Safe Cities Authority developed the initiative in-house under the Digital Punjab vision of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, with no additional financial burden placed on the government, and the system connects the QR infrastructure directly to the existing PSCA command and control network that already monitors Lahore’s Safe City camera system. The July 1 enforcement date transforms what has been a voluntary compliance campaign into a binding legal requirement, with the traffic police’s deployment of sector-specific enforcement teams signalling that the crackdown will be systematic rather than selective. For Lahore’s millions of daily commuters who rely on rickshaws, taxis, and wagons for their daily movement, the mandatory installation of QR panic buttons represents a meaningful safety upgrade that gives passengers a direct, technology-enabled channel to law enforcement for the first time in the city’s public transport history.
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