S. Vishnu Sharma
Government of Rajasthan will collaborate with IIT Madras to implement a structured framework for a data-driven systems approach to road safety.
MoU to enable this collaboration between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras was signed recently.
Government of Rajasthan was represented by its Transport Secretary Ravi Jain and Professor Ravindra Gettu, Dean (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research) represented IIT Madras during the MoU signing ceremony.
The key objective behind fostering collaboration between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras is to enhance road safety measures.
Government of Rajasthan ties up with great IIT Madras
Another objective behind fostering collaboration between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras is to increase capacity and capability across the board in the Government to both increase the survivability of road accident victims and reduce occurrence rate in the State.
Minister of Transport of Government of Rajasthan Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, speaking about the partnership between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras said their government has always been very determined in strengthening our State’s road safety measures so as to reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities from it considerably.
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In this regard, Government of Rajasthan is extremely delighted to join hands with RBG Labs at IIT Madras to help implement the Tamil Nadu Model of Road Safety and are ever ready to facilitate interactions between the stakeholders of Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras.
The key outcomes targeted from the collaboration between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras are:
# Building capability of the core road safety team in Rajasthan.
# Help build strategies and implementation work packages for all stakeholder departments to realize safe roads in the State of Rajasthan.
# Develop a road map towards reaching the SDG goal of 50% reduction in road fatalities by 2030 and eventually to zero deaths from road traffic accidents.
# Help build a data driven trauma care with institutional registry developed by IIT Madras.
Professor Ravindra Gettu speaking about the tieup between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras said this MoU will foster a collaborative partnership.
In this partnership, IIT Madras will be building the capability of various stakeholders in Government of Rajasthan and help them design and implement a successful road safety program, he said.
This collaboration will involve various stakeholder Departments in Goverment of Rajasthan involved in road safety including Public Works Department (PWD), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), police, health and medical services, among other agencies.
Speaking more on the partnership between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras, Professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian, faculty-in-charge at Rehabilitation Bioengineering Group (RBG) Labs said roads are shared asset and the safety on them is a collective responsibility of all the stakeholders.
He further said however, without having an overt and specific responsibility, it can be easily lost between the gaps.
Therefore, it is quintessential to develop a good strategy based on data.
It is, therefore, necessary to have a design thinking approach to solve the problem by not just identifying the issues but implementing changes that are sustainable in the local conditions, said Professor Venkatesh.
RBG Labs is with Department of Engineering Design at IIT Madras.
Speaking more about the collaboration between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras he said the breadth of this engagement is a testament to the benefit it will bring to both the partners.
With requisite orientation and training programmes, the stakeholders from the State of Rajasthan are expected to develop both capacity and capability.
This will be essential in implementing and using the information from the magnum opus of road accident data from MoRTH, i.e., ‘Integrated Road Accident Database’ (iRAD), said Professor Venkatesh.
Giridhar Aramane, Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India congratulated the initiative.
Praising the initiative of fostering the collaboration between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras he said safe roads are critical for safe movement of goods and people that will result in a vibrant economy.
MoRTH has been backing RBG Labs at IIT Madras to take its structured data-driven system approach to improve road safety pan-India.
We look forward to seeing a major impact in Rajasthan from this initiative. We wish all the stakeholders the best to make our roads safe for all, he said.
Speaking about the collaboration between Government of Rajasthan and IIT Madras Ravi Jain said Rajasthan is one of the pilot States that will be implementing the Integrated Road Accident Database.
We look forward to aligning our stakeholder departments to work on a systems approach to road safety using the Transportation Safety Framework developed by the RBG Labs.
‘This will help us streamline our initiatives in road safety and have a significant impact in achieving SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) goal of 50 per cent reduction by 2030 in the State.’
RBG is an interdisciplinary group with competencies in human factors and transportation, innovation and lean operations, medical devices and implants.
A couple of key projects on road safety by RBG Labs are:
# Working with National Health Mission Tamil Nadu, helped build a unique Trauma Care program, TAEI (Tamil Nadu Accident and Emergency care Initiative).
RBG Labs had advised in designing and implementing this unique trauma care program that uses principles of lean manufacturing
# Working with the Tamil Nadu Police, helped improve the data collection process of road traffic accidents called RADMS (Road Accident Database Management System).
The resultant application TARA (Traffic Accident Reporting App) was geared to have an integrated approach to accident data collection.
# MoRTH adopted this integrated approach for data collection where in-depth data can be simultaneously collected from various domain specialist agencies called iRAD (Integrated Road Accident Database).
RBG Labs, IIT Madras and NICSI are currently in the process of developing and implementing nationally
# Based on a technology transfer from RBG Labs, IIT Madras to M/s Harita Seating Systems Limited, an IoT based ubiquitous monitoring of driver presence, performance and behaviour monitoring system called the Harita Intellisea™ was launched in 2017 and won the auto-component of the year in 2018.