Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) will collaborate with the Tamil Nadu government to implement a scientific enforcement approach to road safety. An MoU for this collaboration was signed recently between the Special Task Force, Road Safety, the government of Tamil Nadu, and the Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS), IIT Madras.
Marking the beginning of this partnership, C Sylendra Babu, IPS, Director General of Police, Tamil Nadu, said, “It is important to understand the socio-economic burden of road accidents on society and family due to young students and breadwinners losing their lives. The adoption of a scientific approach to road safety is a must.”
According to a press release, the key outcomes targeted from this collaboration include conducting forensic accident audits at identified crash spots and developing a comprehensive and scientific crash investigation taking into factor the human, vehicle and road environment.
The outcomes also include submitting a detailed crash investigation report covering all aspects of safety and offering recommendations for the hotspots for prevention of accidents along with photographs and a design framework for conducting empirical ground studies, identification of gaps in data collection, and providing a structured methodology for data collection and analysis.
High expectations
V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “By leveraging the technical and robust field level experience of Tamil Nadu Police along with a large amount of data available with them, we have no doubt that a very robust and comprehensive road safety framework will be developed through this interaction at the shortest possible time.”
Elaborating on the engagement, Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Head, CoERS and Professor, RBG Labs, Department of Engineering Design, IIT Madras, who is coordinating this initiative, said, “CoERS at IIT Madras is eager to collaborate with the Special Task Force-Road Safety, Tamil Nadu. A scientific approach to enforcement in road safety is an essential requirement to have a preventive intervention in the pre-crash time interval.”
Balasubramanian added, “A detailed and scientific crash investigation with a comprehensive evaluation using the 3M&E model will be helpful to have insights post-crash for the stakeholders to plan and implement interventions. CoERS, along with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways will look forward to implementing the learning from Tamil Nadu and across the country to improve road safety.”