S. Vishnu Sharma
IIT Madras COERS has launched a new location intelligence platform called Sanjaya in Haryana on 18 January 2024.
It will help the road-owning agencies, law enforcement, emergency care providers and other road safety stakeholders to visualize the high frequency accident zone data for planning targeted interventions in Haryana, say sources from IIT Madras COERS.
Single Platform
Sanjaya’ will provide to be a single platform to visualize crash black spots, and emerging black spots for stakeholders to determine what type of interventions are needed and where they are needed, say sources from IIT Madras COERS.
In addition, tools to perform kilometre analysis, corridor analysis, cluster analysis and point radius analysis with visualizations as heatmaps/trend patterns are included in the platform, say sources from IIT Madras COERS.
Initiative
Commending this IIT Madras initiative, Sanjeev Kaushal, Chief Secretary, Government of Haryana, said, “Sanjaya is an important tool designed to provide nuanced insights and targeted strategies towards making roads safer.
We will also direct our attention to the regions that are witnessing higher crash rates and Sanjaya will help find out those critical hotspots, he said.
Road crashes
India currently has the highest number of road crashes and fatalities in the world, say sources from IIT Madras COERS.
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Crash data from 2022 published by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) attributes that nearly 60% of fatalities took place on 5% of the roads (National and State Highways) in India.
Working Age Group
The working age group of 18 to 60 accounts for 83.4% of total road crash fatalities in the country, which has serious implications on the emotional and psychological impact on family and society at large and imposes significant socioeconomic costs on the nation, say sources from IIT Madras COERS.
Platform
Professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Head, IIT Madras CoERS and RBG Labs, Department of Engineering Design, IIT Madras elaborated about the platform.
He is also coordinating this initiative. He said planning target-specific interventions to mitigate road traffic accidents is important to reduce road accident fatalities, said Prof Venkatesh of IIT Madras COERS.
It is important that any intervention is based on data so that we not only identify the problems on the road but also implement changes that are viable in the long-term.
Sanjaya is platform to get actionable intelligence for jurisdictional leaders. This will empower stakeholders across Haryana to visualize district-wise high-frequency accident zones and aid in preparing an action plan for targeted rectification, he said.
Key features
The key features of this platform includes:
Ø Map-based analyses of blackspots and emerging blackspots across the country, sorted by jurisdiction of States, Districts and Police boundaries.
Ø Infographic and visual displays of data to enable better understanding of crash patterns in a desired region.
About IIT Madras COERS
IIT Madras CoERS at is funded by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India, to perform evidence-based integrated approach to Road Safety.
CoERS (The Centre of Excellence in Road Safety) works on various aspects of human factors engineering, road engineering and vehicle engineering to bring about significant improvements in road safety globally.
This CoE also advices various stakeholders and Governments to bring about a data-driven systems approach to road safety.