Relevance: GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation; Global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests;

Relevance: GS-3: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Key Phrases: Road accidents, Road Safety 2.0, AI for road Safety, Project iRASTE, “Vision Zero”, Fatality Ratio, Golden Hour.

Why in News?

• Nitin Gadkari , Minister for Road Transport and Highways, has set in motion a plan to reduce road accidents by 50% by 2024, through the adoption of AI and predictive analytics to make the country’s roads safer.

Context:

• A World Bank report pointed out last year that India has just 1% of the world’s vehicles, but accounts for 11% of global road-accident deaths the highest in the world.
• In the last decade, 1.3 million people died and another 5 million were injured on Indian roads.
  • On average, 400 people die in road accidents in India every day. Between 2018 and 2020 a staggering 434,244 lives were snuffed out in road accidents, or almost 150,000 people every year.
• Along with lives lost, the large number of road accident deaths has a significant socio-economic impact, too.
  • The World Bank report estimates that road crashes cost ₹ 5.96 trillion, or 3.14% of India’s GDP.
• As per the project head of Road Safety 2.0, (a project by the World Economic Forum), India needs a different approach, since all the conventional practices for ensuring road safety adopted in the last five decades have failed to produce results.
• The statistics are grim but they may be about to change, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to make India’s roads safer.

Humsafer: A Game-changer app

• The group that runs the Road Safety 2.0 programme found that 80% of accidents happen owing to human errors such as speeding, or when the driver has been behind the wheel for more than 8 hours without a rest, or is drunk.
• It started a pilot project whereby artificial intelligence was used to assist people to overcome their human limitations.
  • It was done by using a mobile app from HumSafer.
  • The driver has to download the app and place the handset on a stand at eye-level and charge it.
  • Using AI, the app monitors the driver’s eyes and sends an alert the moment he becomes drowsy, so that he can take a break.
• The pilot was done on 6000-7000 drivers and not a single accident was reported by users of this app.
  • The app not only tracks the alertness of drivers, but their behaviour, too.
  • It is a game-changer because, along with tracking, it also scores the driver’s driving habits like Is he manoeuvring too much, what is the speed limit, is the driver taking breaks? These points then get incentivised.
• Starting with a few thousand truck drivers, the project has gone on to include over 10,000 of them.
  • HumSafer Foundation now plans to take this number to 100,000 drivers by the end of the year, and in the next four years, reach at least 10% of the total number of truck drivers in the country, which is currently around 8 million.
• The erstwhile systems work on a punishment mechanism, which means that if you break a law you get punished. But what if I am a good driver, what do I get?
  • Also, making drivers download an app has to have a motivational factor, otherwise why will they download an app?.
• The Humsafer model works because it is incentive-based.
  • Once the app is downloaded and starts tracking a driver, he gets ₹ 1.50 for every 10 km of safe and good driving.
  • These rewards can be encashed at the end of the month, and the amount can go as high as ₹ 1500 a month.

Future Ahead:

• Going ahead, the company is planning to include features such as family tracking, sharing of correct and important information on government schemes, advances in sleep detection features, and finally, crash detection.
• A high fatality ratio, is mainly because no help is forthcoming during the golden hour (the hour immediately following an accident).
  • So, a pilot is being run to map accidents and the nearest hospitals, to save lives.
• Work is being done on a feature that allows to detect an accident that has happened, by auto-detecting the G-force, then one can immediately get medical assistance.
  • For that they’re working with IIM-Ahmedabad and IIT-Delhi in trying to humanise the approach to using this app.
• The other startup that WEF roped in is Highway Delit, which works with emergency caregivers in case of accidents. Their wagons can communicate with the nearest hospital.
• Next steps is looking at how AI can be used to enforce good practices, such as issuing of an e-challan the moment a camera detects a driver who is not wearing a seat belt. The other area is in emergency care.
• The next big focus is to create an ecosystem that becomes a sustainable model, with participation from insurance companies, tyre companies, and oil firms, among others.
• Getting insurance players involved is important. Worldwide, insurance firms have been intrinsic to road safety programmes.
  • With the HumSafer app, insurance companies can also benefit, as they get access to individual data on a driver’s driving habits, and can accordingly fix premiums.
  • The technology platform that HumSafer provides can be used for accident settlements, since it monitors the entire journey.
• On Insurance front, the ministry issued a notification on February 25, 2022, which mandates a detailed procedure for investigating road accidents for a quick settlement of claims by the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal.
  • It also mandated validated mobile numbers in the Certificate of Insurance.

Steps by the Government:

• MoRTH identified high priority areas that could benefit from AI-based technology — forensic post-crash investigations, pattern of accidents due to black spots, fatigue indicators, and sleep detectors for driver, and advance vehicle collision avoidance systems.
• Minister called on Indian industry and entrepreneurs to build indigenous AI-based solutions for monitoring and enforcement of motor vehicle legislations.
• The ministry is also mulling implementing digital construction, which enables machines to translate design drawings on the field using sensors.
• The Centre has already rolled out Advanced Traffic Monitoring System (ATMS) on the Delhi-Meerut Eastern Peripheral expressway, and intends to integrate the technology into all national highways.
  • The system uses technology to capture the number plate of vehicles, identify discrepancies in vehicle documentation and adherence of traffic rules, and alert local authorities about such vehicles.
• In a unique collaborative initiative between the government, industry, and academia towards advancing road safety, Intel, INAI, IIIT-H (International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad), CSIR-CRRI (Central Road Research Institute), Mahindra & Mahindra and Nagpur Municipal Corporation have together launched Project iRASTE (intelligent Solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering) in Nagpur.
  • Leveraging AI, the project will focus on vehicle safety, mobility analysis and road infrastructure safety to move towards a “Vision Zero” accident scenario.

Conclusion:

• There are opportunities aplenty for the application of AI-driven technologies in the transport sector, which removes human interference and the possibility of errors, thereby improving efficiencies and safety in traffic movement.

Source: Business-Standard

Mains Question:

Q. Developments in technology, can certainly help achieve the target of halving the number of road accidents in India by 2025. Discuss.