Over 30 states, UTs to use IIT Madras' data driven model to make roads safer

New Delhi: Over 32 states and Union Territories in the country have come on board for using a data-driven model developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras to help them make their roads safer and improve emergency response as well as trauma care.

With road safety experts citing quality data crunch as a major roadblock in policy making and implementation in India, the model

has been officially adopted by the Ministry of Road and Transport with funding from the World Bank.

The IIT team has signed up MoUs with the state governments to help them develop a road map towards reaching the SDG goal of 50 per cent reduction in road fatalities by 2030 and eventually to zero deaths from road traffic accidents.

The team will also help states build strategies and implementation work packages for all stakeholder departments to work on safe roads and help build a data driven trauma care with institutional registry.

According to Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Professor at Department of Engineering Design, IIT Madras, initially the project was launched on a pilot basis with six states with highest fatality rate in road crashes.

The six states are Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

"However, as many as 27 states and five Union Territories across India are in various stages of implementing Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) now. At least 11 states and one Union Territory have already started live data collection using iRAD, Balasubramanian said.