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ARAI to set up fog, night-driving test facilities to improve vehicle sensor safety
The initiative comes amid a rise in road accidents linked to poor visibility, where conventional fog lamps have often proved inadequate.
PUNE: In a move aimed at improving road safety and bringing India’s automotive testing ecosystem closer to global standards, the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) is setting up specialised facilities to simulate foggy and night-driving conditions. The facilities will be used to test, validate, and fine-tune vehicle sensor technologies to address visibility-related challenges commonly faced on Indian highways.
The initiative comes amid a rise in road accidents linked to poor visibility, where conventional fog lamps have often proved inadequate.
Explaining the rationale, Reji Mathai, director, ARAI, said that while India is broadly aligned with global automotive regulations and technologies, gaps remain at the implementation stage. “If you look at regulations and available technologies, India is close to what the rest of the world is doing. But we are not always getting the desired results, largely because of implementation issues,” he said.
Mathai said the new facilities would help bridge the gap by enabling testing under real-world conditions. “There are technologies available, but the question is how they perform in actual fog or night-driving scenarios. We are now setting up facilities that can simulate these conditions and assess how vehicle sensors function. We can validate them and fine-tune them for better solutions,” he said, adding that several steps were being taken in this direction.
Beyond vehicle safety, ARAI is also playing a key role in studying the impact of mobility on air quality. Mathai said expert committees had flagged the need for scientific source apportionment studies as early as 2003, when the first Auto Fuel Policy was introduced. The first such study was carried out by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2008, with ARAI’s participation. Since then, ARAI, along with institutions such as TERI, has conducted multiple studies to assess emissions and their impact on ambient air quality.
Last week, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) once again entrusted ARAI, along with IIT Delhi and TERI, with conducting an extensive source apportionment study. Mathai said the exercise involves analysing emissions from various sources and correlating them with ambient air quality. “Dust samples collected on filter papers are analysed and matched with emission sources to check if there are additional contributors,” he said, noting that pollution can also originate from power plants, crop residue burning, and other non-transport sources.
He stressed that accurate attribution is essential for effective policymaking. “The key challenge is to correctly differentiate sources and assess how specific interventions in mobility will impact air quality,” Mathai said, adding that while mobility and the oil sector are heavily regulated, sectors such as construction still lack systematic controls.
ARAI has also conducted air quality and mobility-related studies for Pune and shared its findings with civic authorities. These efforts will now continue under the CAQM framework. “This is not a one-time study. For the next three years, the impact of various measures will be monitored to see how they influence air quality,” Mathai said.
