by Dr. Venkatesh Balasubramanian – August 1, 2020
With a very high number of accident happening in the country on the roads, it is important to adopt and pursue a promising and proven model for national implementation. The Union Government of India (GoI) is committed to implementing Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3.6) to reduce the number of deaths by 50% by 2020 and pursue an aspirational goal of ZERO death by 2040.
The Tamil Nadu model involves multiple stakeholder departments that are principle implementation units and an academic institution as a pivot for knowledge and technology leadership is worthy of emulation. Using the Tamil Nadu model as the lighthouse a pilot roll out of the iRAD developed in Tamil Nadu is being planned by the MoRTH.
The Tamil Nadu model is based on a data-driven approach towards road safety. This helps in reviewing the policy framework, strategy development, regulation and enforcement of various stakeholders, education and training, restructuring road capacity and infrastructure, vehicle and road safety enforcement and vehicle regulations.
Fatalities in Tamilnadu have dropped by 24.39%, due to the continuous efforts of various stakeholders such as the police, health and transport officials. State Government of Tamilnadu played a key role in coordinatingvarious departments and thereby reducing accidental death during 2018 (12,216) comparing the previous year 2017 (16,157) according to the State Crime Records Bureau’s statistics. RBG labs at IIT Madras also played a key role in providing suggestions to reduce accidents at the state level.
GIS mapping of accidents, grid analysis and cluster analysis based on data from RADMS and State ambulances under 108 has helped place in strategically positioning the ambulances at high accident density regions. GPS fitted ambulance gives a real-time geographical positioning to the 24 x 7 call centers and allocation is provided to the nearest available to the caller location. This has brought down the response time of the ambulance significantly. Feasibility and gap analysis of existing trauma care facilities were mapped and TAEI centers at different levels were decided.
The concern for trauma care and the ability to perform deep learning from the RADMS data helped establish a new initiative called the Tamil Nadu Accident and Emergency Care Initiative (TAEI) in Tamil Nadu. TAEI has been at the fore front to stabilize and reduce the forecast levels of road traffic deaths by developing pre-hospital care systems, hospital trauma care systems, early rehabilitation and support, formulate regulatory framework to prevent accidents, provide training to the first responders and nurses and encourage research and development.
