Genesis of the Project

In Feb 2021, Shri Nitin Gadkari Ji, Hon’ble Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, called for all-round efforts by stakeholders in the road safety and mobility ecosystem to reduce road fatalities by 50% by 2025 in India. In September, we convened a brainstorming session with Nagpur Municipal Corporation, CSIR-Central Road Research Institute, Mahindra & Mahindra, INAI (Applied Research Center for AI at IIIT-Hyderabad), International Institute of Information Technology (IIITH) Hyderabad, & Intel India and developed a program of intervention for Nagpur city. With the core idea of leveraging Artificial Intelligence in the road safety space to help the city achieve 50% reduction in fatalities, Project iRASTE was launched with a clear scope and action plan with a timeline of 24 months.

Composition of Project Team

CSIR-CRRI: Dr. S. Velmurugan, Dr. K. Ravinder, and Dr. Mukti Advani.
INAI, IIIT Hyderabad: Varma S. Konala, Govind Krishnan, Dr. Anbumani Subramanian, Dev Singh Thakur.
IIIT Hyderabad: Prof. C.V. Jawahar.
Intel India: Juby Jose.
Mahindra Group: Nirmal Parmar.
Harshal Bopardikar from Another Earthling Studio for executing street infrastructure improvements.
Raju Wagh and team from RoadMarc Foundation for mobilizing volunteers and engaging with local communities for the city-level road safety awareness campaigns.
Sameer Gautam from Traffic Rewards for deploying the RFID technology to develop a system to reward drivers for following traffic rules.
Ashok Leyland Institute for Driver Training & Research (ALIDTR), Chhindwara branch for assisting us in the driver training programs for the driver operators of NMC.

Journey and key milestones

The project was organized under 4 vectors of Vehicle Safety, Mobility Safety Analysis, Infrastructure Safety, and Education, Awareness and Emergency Care. Each of the project partners — CRRI, RoadMarc Foundation and Another Earthling Studio — prepared a detailed plan of activities, and engaged with NMC and other stakeholders to execute the activities within their scope.

Vector	Key activities	Milestones Achieved
Vehicle Safety	ADAS installed on 150 buses of NMC fleet; and 50 school buses. Drivers acclimatized to the new technology.	In the Jan’23-Aug’23 period, the 150 ADAS equipped buses reported 41% lower accidents compared to 250 non-ADAS buses. Driver risk scores have been in constant decline and were 30% lower compared to the values at time of launch.
Infrastructure Safety	Traffic studies completed at select blackspot locations. Geometric Design Plans completed for all 38 blackspot locations Remedial work carried out at 8 blackspot locations.	As of April’24, remedial interventions have been completed at 4 locations. As a result of these interventions, significant improvement in the driving conditions have been observed around these locations.
Mobility Safety Analysis	Dynamic alerts data emitted by the ADAS devices on the buses combined with status road geometry data to predict greyspots (potential blackspots).	Web-based dashboard that predicts dynamically generated greyspots for NMC staff to take action.
Education, Awareness and Emergency Care	Driver training programs on the topics of defensive driving methods, first aid and mental health issues, and to explain the role and value of ADAS systems in the project. Awareness campaigns organized to engage youth, families and communities. Good Samaritan Training event held at the city level where doctors demonstrated the steps one needs to take to deliver first aid in the post crash scenario. Trystander cells installed at 8 blackspot locations.	1400 drivers trained on safe driving methods. Large scale dissemination of the key messages around the road safety theme.
Encouragement	RFID based technology installed on all 438 city buses to nudge drivers to follow traffic signals and gain reward points.	Data from sensors show at least 24% improvement in signal adherence.

Key Outcomes

In the January 2023-August 2023 period, ADAS-fitted buses recorded 41 % lower accidents compared to non-ADAS buses demonstrating the higher level of safety induced through the advantage of ADAS technology.
Rapid upgrade in skilling drivers[GU1] : Driver risk scores are calculated on a monthly basis by normalizing the ADAS alerts accumulated for each driver by kilometres driven by them. This metric across all drivers of ADAS buses has dropped by 30% since the start of the project signalling that the drivers have become more careful (defensive) in their driving habits.
To enable stakeholders for infrastructure improvements to resolve road geometry and road inventory aspects, detailed Geometric Design Plans were delivered to NMC for all 38 blackspot locations,and remedial measures were implemented at 4 locations that can potentially reduce accidents by 40%.
Under Mobility Safety Analysis vector, we introduced the novel technique of predicting greyspots (potential blackspots) on the road network for the first time in India by combining ADAS data with static data like the road parameters. Using this data, the team delivered a set of short and long-term measures for the top 16 greyspots and two of the most unsafe corridors in the city.
Community- based emergency first responder networks (‘Trystander cells’) were installed at 8 blackspot locations, equipped with First Aid resources such as foldable stretcher, first aid kits, have enabled the local first responder volunteer teams to save 31 road crash victims who were involved in crashed around these blackspots.

Conclusion

On May 18, we held an event iRASTE #RoadAhead in Nagpur to reflect on the lessons learnt, shared key takeaways for the road safety community in India and concluded our project iRASTE.

iRASTE Nagpur

Read more out the project

Genesis of the Project

Composition of Project Team

Journey and key milestones

Key Outcomes

Conclusion

Awards and Appreciation from the Global Road Safety Community