While elaborating on the hurdles in and solution for highway construction, Sudhir Hoshing, CEO (Roads), Reliance Infrastructure, says that in the true spirit of Public Private Partnership, risks and rewards need to be shared by both the parties for ensuring effective implementation. Reliance Infrastructure has a portfolio of 11 road projects in six states, with a total length of 968km.

The ambitious safe corridor project on the 80km stretch from Vetturoad to Adoor near Thiruvananthapuram, one of the most accident-prone stretches in the state has begun. As per the data collected by National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC), the agency carrying out the pilot study on the project, around 1200 accidents happened on the stretch in the past three years. The project, which aims at bringing down the accident rate to zero, will be implemented with financial aid from World Bank by the Kerala State Transport Project, a Kerala PWD programme. The KSTP has set aside `60 crore for carrying out safety projects on the roads coming under its jurisdiction. According to NATPAC Director B G Sreedevi, the project is being implemented with the help of local bodies, police department, motor vehicles department and hospitals in the area. ?Interestingly, when good roads was provided, accidents also showed an increasing trend. Hence a detailed study was done,? said Sreedevi. A Progess Report.

In tune with the guiding principles of Decade of Action on Road Safety, Intelligent Transport Systems can play a very important role in ensuring a safe system approach, writes Dr. Kamal Soi, Vice Chairman, Punjab State Road Safety Council.

ArriveSafe, is a Chandigarh based NGO dedicated to road safety, driven by the founder Harman Sidhu?s traumatic experience on the road, and his dedication to spread the awareness about road safety and perils of drunken driving.

Abel Garamhegyi, Vice President Sales- MEAI Region- Barco n.v. and Managing Director, Barco Electronic Systems (P) Ltd, India spoke to Trafficinfratech about his company being in the forefront of display and visualisation solutions.

The proposed discipline zone for Western Express Highway offers a possibility to examine how much improvement we can achieve in congestion mitigation and traffic calming with better discipline, governance and management of road use. Ashok Datar, Chairman, Mumbai Environmental Social Network, gives an account.

Several manufacturers have announced that they are working on self-driving cars to be introduced in the near future; what are the implications and how soon will they be on our roads? Dr. Luis Willumsen, Director of Luis Willumsen Consultancy and Visiting Professor University College London, looks at the future of self driving autonomous vehicles and how they will impact transport planning, traffic congestion and road accidents in the coming years.

An equal equity Joint venture of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi and IDFC Foundation, Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Limited (DIMTS) provides Urban Transport Infrastructure Project Consultancy and Intelligent Transport System Solutions for Public Transport. In an interview with Trafficinfratech, DIMTS Managing Director and CEO S N Sahai talked about some of the recent ITS initiatives.

John Austin, Managing Consultant, Austin Analytics, the UK, discusses the importance of public transport interchanges in Public Transport, best practices that need to be followed in their design and the benefits.

Public transport projects are often delayed or put on hold for a variety of reasons ? reasons that are often not based on the real problems of the project. Ranjit Gadgil, Programme Director of Pune-based Parisar, takes a look at Cost Benefit Analysis, a tool for evaluating transportation projects.