With a strong presence in India and South East Asia, Safety First Engineering Pvt. Ltd. is a leading manufacturer of crash barriers, with focus on advanced wire rope safety barriers especially SAFENCE Flexible Wire Rope Barrier System. Bharat Anand, Director, Safety First engages in a Q & A session with Trafficinfratech
What are the advancements in Crash barriers globally and in India particular?
As land becomes a costlier and costlier resource, there is a trend towards slim highway concept. Highways are capable of handling high volumes of traffic but at the same time take up lesser space.
Wire Rope Crash Barriers have been the backbone of majority of 2+1 Roads where this concept originated and now with the invention of High Containment Low Deflection Crash Tested Concrete Barriers the concept is gaining more and more popularity.
What are your focus areas now and the new markets explored?
Our focus as before remains in providing Evidence Based Crash Tested Barrier Systems to the Indian Market. Safety First now offers full spectrum of Vehicle Restraint Systems, Wire Rope Barriers, Metal Beam Barriers, Interlocking Prefabricated Concrete Barriers and End Treatments through our dedicated in-house manufacturing facility in NCR Region – We are the only manufacturer with the complete suite of products. We are also exploring the municipal markets with our noise barrier and concrete barrier offerings after having successfully deployed them on the Highway Networks.
Are there any new challenges?
In spite of the MoRTH Circular in 2020 and NHAI Circular in 2024, there continues to be a lot of confusion in the design of systems to be used in the Indian Market. Worldwide, when using Performance Based Barriers, the onus of passing the crash test lies with the System Designer/ Crash Barrier Manufacturers, as they have their own proprietary designs.
The current guidelines are being interpreted in various manners by different stakeholders and engineers on the field. This often leads to delays and hold ups in project execution and urgent intervention is required from the authorities to issue clear guidelines on the matter.
What are the new product/technology offerings at the October TrafficInfratech expo?
We launched our Interlocking Crash Tested Concrete Barriers last year and are planning to put them in the market this year. We shall also be launching our various solutions for Crash Tested End Treatments like Crash Attenuators, End Terminals and Truck Mounted Attenuators along with our Partners Lindsay Transportation U.S.A.