Driver safety: Ad boards to muffle visual ‘screams’ in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad: Imagine driving at 60 km/h as dusk falls. Suddenly, a 60-square-metre digital billboard erupts in a flash of brilliant white light. In the single second it takes your pupils to adjust, you have travelled 17 metres effectively blind. In that distance, a braking car, a drifting motorcycle, or a pedestrian can become a casualty of “visual saturation”.

This is the hazard that the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) seeks to engineer away. With the 2030 Commonwealth Games fast approaching, the AMC has released its Draft Outdoor Advertisement Policy, 2026.

The document is a rulebook that treats human attention as a finite civic resource — and one that tells every street what it may and may not say.

In residential zones, digital media is banned outright to protect the sanctity of neighbourhoods, allowing only small-format static signs. In contrast, commercial and mixed-use zones are high-tolerance areas where the widest spectrum of assets is permitted, albeit under strict buffers.

“At the heart of the policy is the Visual Load Index (VLI) — or the visual calorie count, ensuring that no street segment consumes more than its healthy share of a citizen’s cognitive bandwidth,” said a senior AMC official.

By weighting factors like size, illumination, and motion (moving/animated ads), the AMC can now mathematically dictate when a corridor is “full”. If a proposed site pushes the index above a critical threshold, the permit is denied, regardless of whether the lot is commercially zoned.

On roads with design speeds of 60 km/h or more, advertisements are prohibited within a 50-metre clear distance of any intersection.

The AMC will mark “sight triangles” on-site to ensure a driver’s line of vision at corners remains unbroken. To prevent high-speed distractions, the policy mandates that any Variable Message Display (VMD) must hold a static frame for at least 10 seconds.

Transitions are limited to a gentle one-second fade; zooming graphics, scrolling text, and full-motion video are strictly prohibited.

Brightness is also capped relative to the environment. While daytime displays can compete with the sun at 5,000 candelas per square metre, nighttime sensors must automatically dim displays.

Digital Wall Wraps must drop to 800 candelas to prevent light pollution. Crucially, all digital assets must feature a “hardwired fault mode”. If a sensor glitches, the screen must default to black rather than strobing.

Drone advertisements are restricted to event-based approvals, and floating balloons must be tethered with certified load-bearing cables and grounded during high-wind events.

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REINING IN ROADSIDE DAZZLE

Intersection buffers

To prevent driver distraction, no advertisements are allowed within a 50-metre distance of intersections on roads with design speeds of 60 km/h or above

“Dark Sky” rules for the Sabarmati

The riverfront is divided into three sub-zones. The 25-metre River Edge (Sub-Zone A) is a commercial-free belt. In other zones, digital screens must be oriented away from the water to prevent ecological light pollution on the river surface

Compliance standards

All advertisements must comply with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Code, the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, and other applicable national laws

No “makeshift” frames

The use of bamboo or non-engineered scaffolds is strictly prohibited for any installation