CHENNAI : Indian Institute of Technology Madras is collaborating with Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd. (RNTBCI) to reduce road accidents fatalities in Chennai and neighbouring districts through two projects. This initiative is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
The Connected Intelligent Urban Transportation lab at IIT Madras will develop innovative, technology and data-driven solutions to improve road safety.
RNTBCI has contributed to IIT Madras as part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The MoU for the same was signed today (2nd April 2022) by Prof. Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras and Mr. Debashis Neogi, Managing Director, Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd (RNTBCI) in the presence of Mr. Natarajasundaram Balasubramanian, Vice president, RNTBCI.
Lauding this initiative towards public safety and saving lives, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “This initiative will surely reap benefits in terms of road safety and other technological interventions for the transportation sector at large. This project will lead to generate data which will help to enhance road safety. The findings from this project will pave way for new technologies that will further enhance entrepreneurship ideas.”
Delivering the Chief Guest address, Mr. Kapil Saratkar, IPS, Additional Commissioner of Police, Chennai City Traffic Police, said, “Around 4,500 traffic police are deployed by Tamil Nadu Police to manage the traffic in the city. However, there is a manpower shortage and these policemen have to face several difficulties in managing the traffic in the city. The Police Department requests the students of IIT Madras to provide simple and innovative solutions to address the problems faced by the department in managing the traffic in the city.
A year-long hackathon named ‘Hackcidents’ will be conducted and the best ideas on Road Safety and Accident Prevention will be implemented. Centre For Innovation, a voluntary student body at IIT Madras, will conduct the hackathon.
Highlighting the unique aspects of this collaboration, Mr. Debashis Neogi, Managing Director, Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd (RNTBCI), said, “India as a country is growing multi-fold. At the same time, we have one of the world’s largest vulnerable road users. It is imperative to keep the pace of growth. However, we also need to make sure the growth is sustainable. As part of our CSR, we are glad to work with IIT Madras, which conducts research in Science and Technology aimed at promoting Sustainable Development Goals, to study road safety and create innovative approaches to enable safer roads.”
Thanking RNTBCI for partnering with IIT Madras, Prof. Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras, said, “This project on Intelligent Urban Transportation is an urgent need given the growth that India is experiencing. We are happy to partner with Renault-Nissan on this crucial project.”
The first project’s aim is to improve public safety with a particular focus on reducing fatal accidents involving public transit buses in Chennai.
Among the fatal accidents in Chennai in 2019, over 10 per cent were caused by buses. This fraction is twice the number reported across the country. Over 80 fatalities involved public transit buses in 2019. Further, close to 100 accidents resulted in grievous injuries. Besides the burden on the public transit agency in the form of a high pay out against claims, these accidents have large social costs.
The IIT Madras project proposes the use of state-of-the-art sensors and data collection techniques for better understanding the root causes leading to bus accidents and propose innovative ways to significantly reduce them.
Speaking about the Project implementation, Dr. Gitakrishnan Ramadurai, Principal Investigator for the projects and Associate Professor (Transportation Engineering Division), Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “We are grateful to RNTBCI as well as Chennai Traffic Police, Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and the TN government for giving us this opportunity to contribute towards improving safety in our region.”
Dr. Gitakrishnan Ramadurai added, “The projects will combine advanced sensor technology with cutting-edge data analytics to design cost-effective solutions to address road safety. I am confident that the innovative capabilities of our students and start-ups will translate to new ideas that will not only benefit our city but save thousands of lives worldwide.”
The second project under this Initiative will focus on using low-cost innovative technology to prevent accidents in Chennai, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu.
Tamil Nadu has performed exceedingly well among States in the country in reducing road accident fatalities in the last few years. Though Tamil Nadu as a state had seen improvements between 2017 and 2019, Chennai city registered an upward trend till 2019. Chennai registered 1,252 fatalities in 2019 which is 50 per cent more than the number in 2015 and 100 per cent more than the number reported in 2010.
Being a large metropolitan region, the challenges faced by Chennai are unique and complex. A large proportion of severe and fatal accidents involve vulnerable road users – pedestrians, bicyclists, and two-wheeler riders. This project proposes to address the challenge of reducing accidents in the Chennai Mega Region by leveraging the innovative capabilities of students and the start-up community.
