Traffic police launch app to analyse, reduce road accidents in Gurugram

The iRAD system entails a mobile application, which enables investigation officers to enter the details of a road accident, along with photos and videos, against which a unique ID is created. This ID facilitates police and other authorities to access the details of an accident, identify the cause and accordingly recommend changes in road infrastructure to reduce accidents

The Gurugram traffic police on Saturday launched the Integrated Road Accident Database (IRAD), which is aimed at highlighting road engineering defects, identifying black spots and reducing road accidents in the district.

Officials from the district administration, the National Highways Authority of India, the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority, and road safety officers also attended the meeting. (Sourced)

The iRAD system entails a mobile application, which enables investigation officers to enter the details of a road accident, along with photos and videos, against which a unique ID is created. This ID facilitates police and other authorities to access the details of an accident, identify the cause and accordingly recommend changes in road infrastructure to reduce accidents.

A meeting with all the stakeholders was organised on Saturday to discuss issues such as how teams will be formed to regularly monitor the accident spots and a nodal officer of the rank of deputy commissioner of police will head the team, said police. Officials from the district administration, the National Highways Authority of India, the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority, and road safety officers also attended the meeting.

Commissioner of police Kala Ramachandran said professor Venkatesh Balasubramanian of IIT Madras made a presentation of the iRAD software during the meeting. “ We had all the stakeholders-- deputy commissioner, CMDA, NHAI, traffic police… We will first need to first train our personnel... Hopefully, we shall see the kind of results that Tamil Nadu has seen in terms of reduction of accidents and fatalities,” she said.

Gurugram reported 80 accidents between January and March this year this. According to police, while 409 people were killed in road accidents in 2021, 375 lost their lives in 2020.

Ravinder Singh Tomar, deputy commissioner of police (traffic), said according to data available with the police, on an average, at least one person dies in a road accident every day. “We have been monitoring the accident spots and analysing them regularly. Many structural changes had to be done at many spots. We observed no death arising out of a road accident has been reported from Hero Honda Chowk for the last one year and hence, we decided to remove the junction from the list of black spots in the city,” he said.

Tomar said they have launched the iRAD systems after integrating it with GIS maps of police stations and personnel deployed at every police station will have to download the application in their phones. “The investigation officials of a police station, who visit the accident spots, will have to feed in all the relevant details of the accident and photographs so that anyone monitoring and analysing the accident spots can get all the details on one platform,” he said.

Tomar said all the concerned stakeholders will receive an alert on their mobile phones regarding the accident and its details. There are 12 accident spots on NH-48 where accidents are reported on a regular basis, said police.

“An engineer from the concerned department will visit the accident spot, examine it and feed the required details such as the road design. The data will be collected, will be analysed by an IIT team and accordingly suggestions and corrective measures will be shared with the police and district administration, who will accordingly implement the changes,” said Tomar.

Police said the database of the iRAD software is installed in all the police stations. A login-id will be created in the name of the officials.

Tomar said by logging in to the id, all the information about a road accident collected by the police will be uploaded and it will be easy to assess the cause of the accident from the information fed on the iRAD software. “Once the causes of an accident are identified, the issues plaguing road safety will be addressed in time. The admin user (official) can easily view and evaluate the information uploaded about an accident,” he said adding that the exercise will help reduce fatalities.

The DCP said the main objective of the project is to create a database of road accidents from all the accident spots across the district. Police said the project will use data analytic, analyse road accident statistics collected from across the district and put forward various suggestions to concerned stakeholders.

The iRAD has been integrated with the national digital vehicle registry, VAAHAN, the driver database SAARTHI as well as the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) used by the Haryana police.

Police said training on how to monitor accident spots and feed in details of the accidents will soon start and a new office will be set up in Gurugram to monitor the teams visiting the accident spots. At least two investigating officers from each police station will undergo training in the first phase of the iRAD project implementation.