Improving Road Safety in India

What should have been done?

A more prudent approach should have been to build Expressways rather than six-laning the recently upgraded four-lane highways and creating long construction zones which are hazardous and cause congestion, delays and frustration among drivers. Most of the developed countries have built access control Expressways (which are safer) to achieve high level of mobility rather than converting the existing highways to six-lane highways with not much control on access.

Forgiving Highways

The developed countries have reduced the RTCs drastically by investing in road safety and changing their approach with strong political support. The approach (Fig. 1) is about restructuring organisations to consolidate all efforts (policy, engineering, enforcement, trauma care, awareness and education). The focus is: ‘People first’. These countries have come round to thinking that ro

ad traffic crashes and fatalities are preventable. They realised that human beings are bound to commit mistakes and therefore, adopted the

approach of building ‘forgiving highways’. The decline in the road death rate (fatalities/population) at high-income countries (Kopits and Cropper, 2005) was found to be most dramatic for pedestrians and cyclists. These countries segregated Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), i.e., pedestrians and cyclists from high speed roads and made efforts towards control on speeds according to the road functions, thus making safety features an integral part of road infrastructure and practicing road safety audit.

The clock is ticking and the policy makers, planners, designers, developers of road systems and enforcing agencies in India can no longer continue to give lip service to the cause of road safety. The entire approach has to change. The foremost change has to be on the belief that human factor is the cause of crashes in more than 90% cases. Fig.2 shows a more realistically acceptable understanding of causes of road traffic crashes.

It has to be appreciated and understood that the human body is highly vulnerable to injury and humans are bound to commit mistakes and that road system has to accommodate and compensate for human vulnerability and shortcomings. The strategies, therefore, would have to be human-centric (Fig. 3).

The available data shows that about 50% of RTCs in India are on National and State Highways and VRUs are involved in about 60% cases. It is also to be appreciated that countries in transition have much higher proportion of involvement of VRUs in fatalities when compared with high income countries which have higher proportion of motorised four wheelers (Fig. 4). Therefore, attention for safety has to be for National & State Highways and VRUs.
There is no magic solution or single countermeasure that would prevent all these road traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities. A systems approach is needed that ensures coordinated inputs, expertise and efforts from many sectors/ disciplines / authorities such as planning, finance, highways authorities, police, transport, town planning, professionals, developers, insurance, mass media, education, voluntary/welfare organisations, research and behavioural science. Following steps and actions are likely to bring about significant improvement in road safety in India:

 

• A firm political commitment at the highest level towards road safety. The business as usual attitude will have to be given up.
• The problem has to be tackled in a mission mode as is being done for other public health concerns such as AIDS, malaria and cancer, with definite strategies, targets and funds.
• Notification of Road Safety Policy for India at the earliest.
• Commitment by policy makers, planners, designers and developers to provide safer, and not cheaper, roads; and by the users to follow rules.
• A paradigm shift in the approach for planning, designing and operating rural and urban roads. Fig.5 outlines an approach for a safer road network as generally adopted by countries with much better safety situation.
• Review of the Motor Vehicle Act and legislation of ‘Road Traffic Act’, to define the responsibility for road traffic safety among the various sectors / functionaries and the Government at Central, State and other levels.
• Setting up National Road Safety and Traffic Management Board to oversee aspects relating to road planning, design, data collection, vehicle safety, enforcement and trauma care system with powers for safety audit, inspection, direction and imposing penalty for defaulters.
• Re-visiting MCA for removal of ambiguities and for provisions of stringent penalty in case of non compliances so that Concessionaire can not afford to ignore safety aspects in design, construction and operation of highways on PPP.
• In order to bring about improvement in the existing low level of proficiency, mandatory training of professionals engaged in road sector and working with Ministry/NHAI/Consultant/ Concessionaires/Contractors
• through well structured programme by MoRTH/NHAI/ NITHE.
• Mandatory provision for physical separation and safety provisions for VRUs on all road improvement projects being planned and implemented. The existing Standards/ Guidelines need to be reviewed.
• Review of all existing standards/ guidelines/ manuals/ codes of practices, etc., of MoRTH /IRC for the specific road safety deficiencies and shortfall identified in relation to safety, specially for the needs and requirements of VRUs as per international best practices suitable for Indian conditions.
• Professionals to enhance their skills and commit themselves to plan and design roads that are safe (and not cheap), forgiving and meet the needs of all categories of users.
• All road projects being delivered at present (either at planning stage, design stage, construction stage) whether on Public Private Partnership basis or through Items Rates contracts to be subjected to the Road Safety Audit (RSA) at all the stages of development – for identification of safety deficiencies. The removal of deficiency to be an integral part of the development process without compromise.
• All new townships and colonies to be planned with hierarchal system of road network and to have infrastructure to encourage walking and cycling; and traffic calming technique provided in existing towns.
• A demonstration project incorporating all features of safety and international best practices which could be a model for adoption.

(A P Bahadur, a highway professional with over 40 years’ experience, is currently working for Asian Development Bank as PPP Expert for Haryana. He retired from Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as Chief Engineer. He has been Director, National Institute for Training of Highway Engineers; General Manager, NHAI and Director, Indian Roads Congress. He has been awarded by the World Road Congress (PIARC) for a paper he co-authored on ‘Linear Settlements and Safety Issues along Highways in India: a case for integrated approach for highway development’.)