Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD)
Source: By Saurabh Parashar: The Indian Express
Dharam Pal, UT Adviser to the Administrator launched the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) project in Chandigarh. iRAD is an initiative of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), with an objective to improve road safety in the country.
The main idea behind it is to create a Centralised Accident Database to host and access all accident related data by various departments/stakeholders.
What is iRAD?
The iRAD application is an initiative of the MoRTH to capture relevant details about the accident prone areas throughout India.
The details include causes of road accidents, road engineering defaults, negligences on the part of individuals, pattern in accidents and to form a strategy to reduce the number of accidents.
The iRAD was proposed in 2019 but due to Covid-19, the implementation work was postponed.
In February this year, a beta version of iRAD was launched in at least 59 districts of six states including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. With iRAD, any investigation officer visiting the spot of an accident will enter all details in the app, such as day and time of the accident, type of collision, fatal/non fatal, weather conditions, etc.
The data will further be used by all concerned departments to analyse the cause of accidents and formulate strategies such as identification and rectification of blackspot, engineering interventions, etc.
What is the status of road accidents in Chandigarh?
As per the Road Accident Analysis (RAA) -2020 report of the UT Police, the vehicular population (12,34,757) of Chandigarh is seven per cent more than the city’s total human population (11,58,491). Crash severity has recorded a three per cent increase in 2020 than 2019.
The number of fatal casualties is being reported between 98 and 111 in the last six years in Chandigarh. Though, due to Covid restrictions, 53 fatal casualties were recorded in 159 road accidents in 2020. According to the RAA wing, Chandigarh has at least a dozen black spots which are the most accident prone areas.
What were the earlier attempts of mapping road accident prone areas?
The Chandigarh traffic police has its dedicated RAA wing, which exclusively works to map road accident spots in Chandigarh.
The wing concludes if the accident took place due to a road engineering fault, human negligence or any other reason.
“Attempts were made earlier also to map the accident spots through technology in this region. We had introduced a web based Integrated Data Evaluation System on Accidents (IDEAS) in Punjab many years back. Initially, it worked smoothly but later authorities abandoned it,” Harman Sidhu, Chandigarh based road safety expert, said.
How will iRAD work and who will operate it?
iRAD is a feedback based system. Police, transport, road engineering/highway and health are stakeholders in this project.
Every stakeholder and department has its defined work within the system. For instance, the police are responsible for visiting the spot, counting the number of accidents, etc.. Analysing the vehicle volume/pressure on a particular stretch is the task of the transport department. Road engineering wing will look after the engineering faults responsible for accidents. Health department will maintain a record of casualties including fatal, non-fatal road accidents.
