New Delhi May 18, 2021

As part of improving road safety in the country, all new national highways to have advanced traffic management systems (ATMs) – Mr R.K. Pandey, member projects, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI)

Corrective measures being taken to remove black spots on national highways taking time, concerned authorities urged to complete the rectification at the earliest

“The Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) will include immediate location identification of areas where traffic bottlenecks occur due to accidents or other reasons and provision of information to motorists on that stretch immediately, meteorological systems, speed detection systems, mobile radio communication systems including base and repeater stations, vehicle-mounted and handheld units and transmission towers in addition to CCTV units at strategic locations to ensure immediate access to information in emergencies”, said Mr R. K. Pandey, Member projects, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) while inaugurating a webinar on ‘Road safety management and action plan’ organised by the India chapter of International Road Federation(IRF) a global body working for better and safer roads worldwide.

“At present in most of the NHAi ongoing projects road safety has been incorporated as built-in with provision to all kind of flyovers, underpasses and overhead passes. Road safety audits are being taken at various stages of construction, including at the end of the project. For the existing roads, measures have been taken to remove the black spots.” said Mr Pandey.

“Currently 4500 black spots have been identified on the National Highways and 2500 have been rectified, work on 1000 is in progress. As corrective engineering measures being taken to remove black spots are taking long, we have urged the concerned authorities and construction companies to remove the engineering faults at the earliest” said Mr Pandey.

“India accounts for more than 10 percent of global fatal road accidents, highest in the world, International Road Federation (IRF) as part of its effort to reduce fatal road accidents in the country has taken up safe road construction projects in seven states including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. These roads will be the safest roads in the country with minimum accidents and almost no road fatality the most desirable design standards are being selected and implemented. The 5E’s of safe road operation including Engineering, Enforcement, Encouragement, Education, and Emergency care are being fully carried out while construction of the highway is in full swing” said Mr K. K. Kapila, President Emeritus of Geneva-based International Road Federation (IRF) working worldwide for better and safer roads worldwide.

“India should follow the road safety measures adopted in the state of Tamil Nadu, which has brought down road accident fatalities considerably and created an infrastructure which is safe and times taken for reaching the accident victim or site is same as world standards”, said  Dr. Shomik Raj Mehndiratta, Practice Manager, Transport – South Asia, The World Bank.

Others who spoke at the seminar included:

• Mr. Kailash C Tiwari, Consultant, Australia will.
• Mr. Krishnan Srinivasan . Sr. Road Safety Consultant with the World Bank.
• Dr. S. M. Sarin, Former Scientist-G, CRRI, Mr. Tony Mathew, Pr. Transport Specialist and Dr. John Fletcher, Principal Consultant, TRL-UK

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