The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras will collaborate with the Tamil Nadu government to implement a scientific enforcement approach to road safety. An agreement for this collaboration was signed between the Special Task Force, Road Safety, Government of Tamil Nadu and the Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS), IIT Madras. This initiative uses a ‘design thinking' approach developed by CoERS, RBG Labs, IIT Madras and will be implemented by stakeholder departments of Tamil Nadu involved in road safety, especially the Tamil Nadu Police, an IIT Madras statement said.
Marking the beginning of this partnership, Dr C Sylendra Babu, IPS, Director General of Police, Tamil Nadu, said, “It is important to understand the socio-economic burden of road accidents on society and family due to young students and breadwinners losing their lives. The adoption of a scientific approach to road safety is a must.”
The key outcomes, as per the IIT Madras statement, targeted from this collaboration include conducting of forensic accident audits at identified crash spots and develop a comprehensive and scientific crash investigation taking into factor the human, vehicle and road environment.
Submit a detailed crash investigation report covering all aspects of safety and recommendations for the hotspots for prevention of accidents along with photographs is also one of the key outcomes of this collaboration.
IIT Madras, Tamil Nadu Government Collaboration: Other Outcomes Targetted
Design framework for conducting empirical ground studies, identification of gaps in data collection and provide a structured methodology for data collection and analysis
Provide recommendations on data-driven process improvements in enforcement strategies.
Perform scientific evaluation of the impact of interventions implemented.
Create a comprehensive standard operating procedure (SOP) for effective traffic enforcement.
Speaking on the association, Professor V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said: “IIT Madras is extremely happy to collaborate with Tamil Nadu Police on the most important topic of road safety. Leveraging the technical and robust field level experience of Tamil Nadu Police along with large amount of data available with them we have no doubt that a very robust and comprehensive road safety framework will be developed through this interaction at the shortest possible time.”