Road ministry banks on software to check accidents

At a time when road accident have increased alarmingly across India — in 2010 one road accident death was reported every four minutes — the government, inspired by a software introduced by the Tamil Nadu road department to improve road safety, is planning to replicate the model across the country. Moushumi Das Gupta reports.

At a time when road accident have increased alarmingly across India — in 2010 one road accident death was reported every four minutes — the government, inspired by a software introduced by the Tamil Nadu road department to improve road safety, is planning to replicate the model across the country.

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The Road Accident Data Management System (RADMS) was introduced in 2009 under a World Bank supported Tamil Nadu road sector project at a cost of Rs 425 crore. The software installed at 1,400 police stations in the state not only geographically maps all accidents taking place on highways but also identifies the most accident-prone spots and condition of roads at such spots. It displays cash trends and other road related details at the click of a mouse. Though Tamil Nadu ranks among the top five Indian states with maximum road accidents — 45,539 accidents and 11,333 deaths were reported in 2011 — RADMS has helped identify 3,000 accident-prone spots in the state. Since its implementation, the number of accident fatalities has come down from 13.39 fatalities for every 10,000 vehicles in 2006 to 10.09 in 2010.

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At present, transport and traffic department officials do not have access to any scientific database on the most accident-prone spots in their states. This severely limits their ability to address the anomalies.