Electronic Detailed Accident Database (e-DAR)

Report or Register Accident: As soon as an crash is reported, the first responders (police and/or ambulance) arrive at the accident scene. The police generate the first report of an eDAR/ iRAD case through the mobile app or through the Injury Report Registry provided by the hospital. The police using the app will record the exact GPS location, photos (other media files such as video, audio, etc.) and observations from the accident scene. Basic information such as GPS location, videos/ photos/ audit and accident severity is captured on field and an eDAR/ iRAD case can be generated by the police.

Import Driver and Vehicle Details: At the station, police can complete the detailed accident entry by importing the driver and vehicle details from the Vahan and Sarathi APIs. This will help by filling in the respective driver’s licence number and vehicle registration number from the captured media files using the field eDAR/ iRAD App. 

Data Validation: The Investigating Officer (IO) validates the data reported by the police and any public data that can contribute to the investigation of the accident case. All district police stations and state headquarters will be able to directly access the data through the eDAR/ iRAD web application and use the dashboard to generate the required reports.

Alerting Stakeholders: Once an accident case is submitted by the police to iRAD, the system raises alerts to stakeholders belonging to the health, highways and transportation departments for them to enter and validate road and vehicle-related inputs. This will allow them to complete their case details through the road safety web application. iRAD web interface contains data entry fields by various stakeholder departments that need to be populated and validated. This application can be used in desktop computers with different modules for each stakeholder such as the highways, transport, police, and PWD to validate the data. Report completion, submission, and alerts will also be managed through this road safety web application.

Health and trauma care: Accident registry for the injured and fatal accidents is made at the hospital using the eDAR/ iRAD App. The medical officer examines the injured people and creates a record for each person using the eDAR/ iRAD application. The IO links each injury report received from the hospital with the accident case ID in the app. 

Road Safety Dashboard: Road safety dashboard is a portal through which accident case reports, accident report summaries, GIS-based accident analysis, and querying the database for required data for user-defined reporting and analysis can be performed. All district police stations and state headquarters will be able to directly access the data from the server through the iRAD dashboard and generate required reports. Credentials for dashboard use and mobile application use based on assigned roles will be managed in the dashboard.

Report Generation and Daily Digest: Data entry compliance and daily digest for each of the police stations, districts and States can be viewed and printed using the iRAD dashboard. Generation of Reports in the prescribed format from MoRTH would be possible through iRAD Dashboard. Through GIS solutions, reports with maps and GPS locations the users can plot the accidents on digital maps. A daily digest will be sent to the stakeholders on compliance and accident details. Through this report, improvements in data entry quality can be evaluated. Based on this training is required for the state, districts or police stations to ensure proper data quality will be worked.

Alignment meeting were conducted for all the road safety stakeholder Departments across India on the iRAD philosophy and prepare them for deployment in all the districts. The orientation included a detailed presentation on three major premises i.e., 5E model, chronology of accident events and RBG transportation safety framework to make the audience understand the data – driven systems approach towards road safety. A comprehensive orientation was presented on iRAD design and data transference workflow, implementation strategy and the role of each stakeholder department after iRAD deployment was provided.

Preparation of training materials, pedagogy, and Training of Trainers (ToT) across the Nation was carried out by RBG labs to successfully implement this unique and comprehensive database management system for road crashes.

The aim of the workshop was to familiarize the rollout managers with the history, development, philosophy and importance of the project as a pathway towards achieving road safety goals of India.

A total of 159 rollout managers from these eight States and four Union Territories participated in the training with active interaction by the trainees. In addition to the rollout managers, department officials from the respective States’ stakeholder departments also participated in the workshop.
The workshop elaborated on roles and responsibilities of the rollout managers, technical aspects and a detailed demonstration of the pedagogy to be adopted. Presentations were given by Senior officials from MoRTH, NICSI and the researchers at IIT Madras on Data Quality Management, effectiveness and steps towards successful implementation of iRAD. Learnings from iRAD, module-wise training, SOP and iRAD troubleshooting management were also discussed. Further, a hands-on module session was also conducted separately, through which case studies were explained and the rollout managers’ view on the particular case was collected in the form of a questionnaire. Finally, the RBG Labs team carried out an evaluation of the participants and questions were asked from the presentation made during each session. Candidates were given a Google form to provide their responses in the stipulated 15 minutes.

To improve the systems in road safety and to identify the gaps, good quality of data on road accidents is essential. Lack of quality in the data reported is a major barrier in planning for interventions and analysing their impact. To address the lack of quality in data reported, a comprehensive road accident database, Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) has been implemented under the guidance of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). The pathway for data-driven decision making to improve road safety has several levels of which establishing a comprehensive database and data quality forms the building blocks.

To accomplish a bottom-up approach in the data-driven process, State and District rollout managers need to have a better comprehension of the State-specific DQR and further providing updates to department-specific stakeholders and provide training to the field officers. Workshops on iRAD data quality and insights were conducted to improve the capacity of the iRAD stakeholders, including Police, Transport, Road-owning agencies, Health, State and District Rollout Managers (SRMs/ DRMs) across all States/ UTs in India. The various dimensions of data quality were covered in the workshop.

The key outcomes of these workshops were aimed towards understanding the State’s Data Quality Report (DQR), interpreting iRAD data, and developing action strategies for addressing gaps in the data-driven process. These DQR workshops were held for all States and UTs between July 6, 2022, and February 21, 2023, including all the stakeholders from Police, Transport, Health, Road Owning Agencies, SRMs and DRMs with a total of 3,166 participants.