India’s highway security disaster is staggering. With over 250,000 deaths a 12 months, the nation faces an pressing and multifaceted problem that goes past public security to the touch upon societal and financial resilience.
The excellent news is that technological developments, resembling Superior Driver Help Methods (ADAS), supply a path ahead that might rework mobility, save lives, and foster financial development.
Grim numbers, nice losses
Street security is prime of thoughts for many Indian highway customers. Based on a survey carried out by HERE Applied sciences, 98% of respondents specific apprehension concerning the danger of highway accidents in India. Nonetheless, solely about one in 4 respondents drives automobiles outfitted with superior security options like ADAS, revealing a big hole between consciousness and motion.
The price of this inaction might be devastating. A authorities report estimates that 19 lives are misplaced to highway accidents each hour in India. For each fatality, many extra people endure from life-altering accidents, making a ripple impact of grief and loss. The financial toll is equally alarming. Street accidents additionally price India an estimated three to 5 per cent of its GDP yearly, pushed by lack of productiveness, healthcare bills, and infrastructure injury.
The influence extends to India’s logistics sector as effectively, which closely depends on highway networks to facilitate freight and transportation. Accidents disrupt provide chains, delay deliveries, and improve prices. As such, the price of inaction on highway security is way too excessive to disregard, and investing in highway security applied sciences will not be elective — it’s important.
Large tech for large beneficial properties
ADAS is a game-changer within the combat for safer roads. Designed to mitigate human error, a number one explanation for accidents, these programs embody options like lane departure warnings, adaptive cruise management, collision avoidance programs, and emergency braking. In developed markets, ADAS is changing into an ordinary, considerably decreasing highway accidents and fatalities.
Encouragingly, the identical survey reveals that 82% of Indian highway customers say they might contemplate automobiles outfitted with ADAS options. This means that with the suitable incentives, resembling tax breaks for ADAS-equipped automobiles or mandates requiring these applied sciences in new fashions, adoption might speed up quickly.
Prioritising susceptible two-wheeler riders
Two-wheelers are on the coronary heart of India’s highway security disaster. An awesome 91% of survey respondents stated they drive two-wheelers, making this phase a crucial focus for any highway security initiative. Alarmingly, 80% of two-wheeler riders really feel in danger on the roads, underscoring the necessity for focused security options.
Based on the Nationwide Crime Data Bureau, two-wheelers account for a big proportion of highway accident fatalities. In 2023 alone, two-wheeler riders, particularly these with out helmets, account for 44% of highway fatalities, making them probably the most perilous mode of transport in India.
Right here’s the place ADAS could make a distinction. Options like emergency braking and collision avoidance in bigger automobiles can assist stop accidents involving two-wheelers. By equipping heavy automobiles with these applied sciences, we are able to defend not simply the occupants of those automobiles but in addition susceptible two-wheeler riders.
Heavy automobiles and hefty dangers
Past passenger automobiles, highway security can also be a priority for heavy automobiles, together with vans and buses, which play a crucial position in India’s financial system by facilitating the motion of products and other people. Over 40% of surveyed logistics operators pointed to driver fatigue, overloading, and lack of security programs as main contributors to accidents involving freight automobiles.
On this sense, data-driven applied sciences supply a promising resolution. Actual-time visitors updates, route optimisation instruments, and predictive analytics can improve the security and effectivity of freight and logistics operations. Think about a system that alerts a truck driver to hazardous climate circumstances, guides them to an alternate path to keep away from congestion, or prevents wrong-side driving by proactive warnings. These improvements not solely make roads safer, they be sure that items transfer sooner and extra effectively, benefiting companies and shoppers alike.
By equipping heavy automobiles with linked security programs, India can handle one of the vital urgent challenges in its transportation sector whereas enhancing the reliability of its provide chains.
A safer highway forward
The present concentrate on highway security in India presents a possibility to rethink and reshape the nation’s mobility ecosystem. Technological developments like ADAS, mixed with data-driven options, have the potential to avoid wasting 1000’s of lives yearly and considerably scale back financial losses.
Nonetheless, the clock is ticking. The longer we delay widespread adoption of those applied sciences, the upper the prices – each human and monetary. It’s time for India to take daring steps, embrace innovation, and prioritize security at each stage of mobility.
With a collaborative, forward-thinking strategy, Indian roads can evolve from being a number of the world’s most harmful to a benchmark for security and progress. The journey forward will not be with out its bumps, however the vacation spot is evident: safer automobiles will result in safer roads that function a basis for India’s development.
(Disclaimer: Abhijit Sengupta, Senior Director and Head of Enterprise for India and Southeast Asia, HERE Applied sciences. Views are private.)
