
In the last few years, the world has witnessed a rapid
and significant development of road transport technologies. These include
safety technologies, advanced traveler information systems, and convenience and
Safety and Rapid Response systems. The entire ecosystem of Road Safety has
transformed. India has the second-largest road network in the world, spanning a
total of 5.89 million kilometers. This road network transports 64.5% of all
goods in the country. 90% of India's total passenger traffic uses the road
network to commute. Road safety is crucial and the Government intends to
leverage technology for augmenting the safety of citizens. The technology
enables you to control traffic, catch the lawbreakers, and provide road safety.
In the current time, road crashes exact a tremendous
human and societal toll in almost every country. Recently, much attention has
been paid to the development of intelligent transport systems (ITS) that can
improve the safety and efficiency of road transport while improving user
comfort t and convenience.
Countries have been involved in developing or
deploying these technologies to some extent. As this process has moved forward,
a great deal of information has been developed concerning the benefits that can
be realised over time with the full deployment of ITS. Among other things,
safety benefits have been measured or estimated for a wide variety of
technologies.
Akhilesh Srivastava- Ex NHAI and Currently Project
Head For Road Safety 2.0 in World Economic Forum and Ex-Chief General Manager
(Highway Operations & IT), NHAI shared that an estimated 1.35 million
people die on the world’s roads every year, and a further 50 million are left
seriously injured. India ranks worst in the world with 11% of global road
fatalities, taking a life every four minutes. Akhilesh Srivastava emphasized
that these road mishaps cause an immense cost to economies and great trauma to
societies, road accidents have always constituted one of the top priorities in
transportation research. However, a particular element that makes road safety
research an even higher priority at this current point in time is the fact that
both the concept and technology of transportation are rapidly evolving.
Akhilesh Srivastava, speaking for Technology-driven Road Safety 2.0 mentioned
new challenges, as well as new opportunities, for the researchers and
practitioners of road safety. Therefore, it is expected that the landscape of
this research will transform rapidly over the coming years.
The emergence of driving automation and connected
transportation systems are only a few dimensions in which advanced technology
is expected to make significant changes to road safety. These changes, however,
may also embody new safety problems that did not exist before these
developments. On the other hand, these technological advancements have offered
new methods for researchers to enhance their experimentation and data
collection capabilities.
Akhilesh Srivastava stated that the purpose of
Technology-driven Road Safety 2.0 is to help better understand how emerging
technologies will impact the practice and research of road safety. The focus is
on these three dimensions: (i) the impact of emerging technologies on reducing
the number of crashes or crash severity, (ii) potential new safety risks/issues
that may be introduced by an evolving road system (and potential solutions to
those), and (iii) benefits that advanced technology can offer to road safety
researchers.