China Now Deploys Robots As Traffic Police Across The Metropolis - Video and Photos

Managing road traffic in the world's most populous country is no easy task.

And one Chinese city has enlisted the help from robots to keep the streets in order.

A team of robotic traffic policemen have started patrolling in Handan, a city in northern China's Hebei Province.

A northern Chinese city has put a team of robots into operation to aid traffic police in tasks such as patrolling, information consulting and providing accident alerts.

Developed by parties including the Handan municipal public security bureau in Hebei Province, the robots are China's first "robot traffic police" on duty, according to Zhou Zuoying, deputy head of the Traffic Management Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security.

The robots are loaded with sensors and can move autonomously in all directions. They can assist traffic police to take photos of vehicles violating parking rules, direct traffic and verify driver's licenses.

The AI-powered androids, the first of its kind in China, were unveiled by the city's police authorities today.

Three kinds of robotic cops have been deployed including one specializing in patrolling, one focussing on giving information and one in charge of dealing with traffic accidents, according to Handan traffic police.

Engineers have installed facial recognition cameras on all of them, the police said in a series of posts on its official account on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter.

Ma Zhanshan, chief of Handan municipal public security bureau, said the bureau aims to use the robots around the clock in important public locations such as train stations and airports to reduce the work intensity of local traffic police.