MOBILITY & SAFETY in ROAD TRANSPORT: INDIA TOPS GLOBAL LIST OF FATAL ROAD MISHAPS

Just a week back, Two persons were killed and 12 others are injured when a portion of an under construction bridge (a span of 400 ton) collapsed and fell on passing vehicle. Of the 12 injured, a man lost a leg while both legs of another one had to be amputated.

Road mishaps have increased significantly in India since last few years. Road accidents in India claimed 130 thousand lives putting china behind in 2007. China is used to be ahead of us till 2 years ago. This is an alarming situation as we top the global list.

Roadway Transport and Highways secretary, Government of India mentioned that majority of the crashes are of “HIT & RUN” cases mostly occurred in major roads.

A study shows that there is a direct link between the increase in speed and fatal mishaps. Every 10% rise in speed results in 40 % rise in personal injury, 30% rise in fatal accidents and 20% rise in all accidents. Pedestrians will survive if they will be hit by a vehicle at less that 30KMPH but death becomes certain if the speed exceeds 50KMPH.

To overcome this, the government has decided to constitute a national and state level safety boards. The board will comprise of experts on road design, vehicle safety and health personal as members. The primary function of the board will be to ensure safety norms are followed by all stakeholders (road builders, maintenance agencies, vehicle manufacturers etc). Government also initiate talks with vehicle manufactures to introduce more sophisticated safety gadgets as implemented in western countries.

This would not be enough to ensure the significant decrease in accident numbers unless we analyze the Grass root information. Improved safety should be the ultimate goal of the government.

If a Vehicle runs over it, takes a turn on it or crash into it, there is a need of DOTs to map it. Across the country all most every DOTs are busy in capturing the roadway infrastructure data and getting ready their geospatial data layers. Even if many DOTs are taking GIS data into the field to update their old data to make their inventories more accurate.

Unfortunately, these data are only limited to transportation assets (road segments from intersection to intersection with names, function class, type… and traffic signs, guardrail etc.). Few DOTs are also using shortest route algorithm within in their GIS application.

To lower down in the Global List for Fatal Road accidents and improving road safety, a high level GIS & Mapping initiative at Government of India is needed:

• A Nationwide transportation data model
• Mapping the Roadway Infrastructure
• Addressing / Geo-coding
• Dynamic Segmentation
• Routing / Driving Directions
• Highways Monitoring System and Safety Program
• Real Time System Management (traffic, Congestion, Weather, Accidents etc.)

Thank you.
Sushanta Kabi

TATA NANO: A NO-NO FROM SINGUR FINDS NEW HOME AT SANAND, GUJARAT

Thanks to the every one for their comments and suggestions on my very first article on “TATA NANO – A BIG NO NO!!”

One of the reader asked few questions to me on this article. These are as follows:

• What are the chances of NANO’s rolling out from Singur?? If not, Singur what will be the next destinations for the TATA’s.
• Will other state governments will be able to provide them the acres of land TATA’s looking for (with their red carpet welcome)? How they ensure of no agitation at their proposed sites? Are these lands are industry specific??
• He raised a big question on “WHAT TATA’s should do now” ?

[He also correctly pointed to the statement of Mr. Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman, Acrelor Mittal. “Situation like Singur can happen anywhere”. Yes we have the examples of troubled mega venture projects like POSCO, Arcelor-Mittal, TATA Steel, Essar, Jindals’ Steel project, Bauxite mining project of Vedanta, SEZs of Reliance, and Videocon etc.
(Just to mention) At stake are over 20 mega projects across India with proposed investments of over Rs 233K crore which is about 3 times the total FDI India received last year. ]

We have seen Mr. Ravi Kant (MD, TATA Motors) was on his heels with his team and meeting various state government officials as well as visiting the proposed site for more than a period of fortnight.

This gave enough indication to West Bengal Government to smell the exit of Tata Nano from Singur. The Chief Minister of the state wrote his last hope with the letter to Mr. Ratan Tata to start the work at Singur. Mr. Ratan firmly replied to his letter by saying him” he will meet him next week”.

Finally the day came on October 3rd when Ratan Tata announced the pull out of Nano from Singur. Ratan Tata's decision sent shockwaves across the state and among the farmers, who given away the land and having lost prospects of jobs.

With this announcement, other State governments really worked hard to woo TATAs to bring Nano project to their state. This time TATAs looked careful, vigilant to make their site selection free from hazards.

Just Few days after on October 8th, a visibily relaxed Mr. Ratan Tata announced the relocation of Tata Nano project to Sanand, Gujarat (35 Kilometers from Ahmadabad). Mr. Ratan praised Gujarat Chief Minister for his fast and speedy process in handover of 1100 acres of land.

Inside Look at State of Gujarat & TATA’s on inking the Deal.

• A good statesmanship by Chief Minister of Gujarat
• He has confessed that :
• - his state has Industrial Map ready (Which played a major role in bringing nano to his state).
• - he always engaged in discussion with land owners and opposition for preparing better industrial map for the state throughout the year.
  
• State able to transfer whole 1100 acres of land to TATAs in 2days of effort.

To conclude this, our state heads must prepare the better industrial map for their states to woo large FDIs in their state.

Thank you

Sushanta Kabi

TERROR BLASTS AT DELHI: ANOTHER INTELLIGENCE MAPPING FAILURE

The Continual nature of recent terrorist strikes at various Indian Cities is forcing Government of India to strengthen and restructure its Anti Terror laws and efforts to protect the people of India against invisible enemies.

Has anything changed after 5 serial blasts on Saturday (9/13) at New Delhi??

• Home ministry of India shouted that they are aware of the possible terrorist strike in such cities, but they failed to capitalize on the ground in real time (at zero hours).
• Investigating Agencies confirmed that “Terror Pattern” is similar to the last four blasts and similar chemical agents used in the preparation of bombs.
• Intelligence agencies suspect the involvement same terrorist outfit behind all the attacks.
• Home ministry repeated the same version of words (what he is used to use after any terror blasts) to the Press “Who ever is involved in carrying out the blast will be punished under law of the land”.
• Our politicians started blaming each other‘s failure.
• State Police claimed to capture the one of the Mastermind of the blasts and bet on solving the case soon.

Are all these above statements really ensure us that we are now protected?

I doubt. The government of India is really in a need to change in approach to terror.

Change; The Government of India needs:

- Need to ensure that the baseline information is accurate to provide situational awareness.

- Intelligence agencies need to be more successful in obtaining the background information on mission, critical information on threat potential.

- Needs more Coordination between state investigating agencies. May be a formation of “a national federal agency “to deal with terror issues.

- Implementation of high end GIS & Mapping initiative. The Majority of information required for Emergency Management and Home land Security is spatial. Once the base data is collected, GIS & mapping initiative becomes extremely helpful in visualizing the necessaries to be developed.

o Threat Assessment and Planning
o Vulnerability Assessment
o Protection Strategies & preparedness
o Response
o Recovery

- (Just to remember) Government of India came out successfully in Kargil War (Operation – Vijay) with an aid of high end GIS & Mapping initiative.

Thank you.
Sushanta Kabi

TATA NANO : A BIG NO NO !!

Welcome All !!!

I would like to extend my heartiest thanks for sharing your valuable time in reading this blog. Frankly, I had never thought of start writing the blogs rather than prefer to discuss the issues in “Spatial Discussion” forums.

Thanks to Evan Williams and his friends for their wonderful creation (I would prefer to say a user friendly weblog invention) of “Blogger” which is a part of “Google Inc’s” team since last 6 years and is helping millions of users in sharing their opinions online.

Anyway, I have just made my name entered into their user list on this very auspicious day. As a mapping professional, we always do come across the various challenges and solutions in our day to day activities (from planning to implementation) and it varies from projects to projects.

NASA and Google Inc have taken initiative and sharing the common desire to map the Universe. They have started with mapping the Moon first. For some interesting information about moon, please visit the Google moon at www.google.com/moon

On this forum, we will discuss issues related to challenges and solutions in mapping each unit of our earth. I would like to request every one to post their views and suggestions.

As a very first topic for discussion, I have preferred to choose the subject the TATA NANO: A Big NO-NO in Singur, WB and its mapping perspectives.

TATA NANO: A Big NO-NO from Singur, WB

Since the day veteran industrialist Mr. Ratan Tata announced on the sidelines of the AGM of TATA tea Limited “Tata motors will be pulling out from Singur plant and will look to relocate the Nano Project if the protection and agitation continues......” , everyone (Industrialists, Media, Government, Federal, Internal agencies) is keenly watching the fate of “Once Lakh Priced - Peoples Car”. Western world community is tracking the lunch of Nano in October and if it will be successful in Indian roads, it will open a large market and strong Competition in small car segments throughout the world. TATAs are also looking for overseas market to lunch Nano.

Most importantly, TATAs and India will also register their name in the record book as first entry in this segment (World’s Cheapest Car).

But today, every one is following the same questions:

• Will TATAs pull out from Singur plant and shifted to anywhere else after making an investment of Rs2000 crore (TATA Motors : Rs 1500 Crore + TATA suplliers Rs 500 Crore) though other state governments have announced their “Red Carpet” Welcome.

May be, Yes. We all know Mr. Ratan Tata as one of the most Socio-Conscious Leader of the India ever produced. He had severally insisted out in his interviews in the past that they will not pull out from Singur Plant. He is also gifting a hospital which will be commissioned in early 2009. But now things are worsened. They are worried for their October lunch of Nano, their peoples safety over increasing agitation at the work site. TATA motors board is expected to meet soon to decide the future course of action (may be PLAN B).

I had few sleepless nights and also few questions in mind:

• Had Tata’s done proper feasibility analysis on site selection when they have opted for Singur to give birth to the world’s first cheapest car “NANO”?


• Have they mapped the project site well before plant installation?


• Have they opted for mapping the political context and behavior of the affected rural village people in the project site?

I doubt. TATAs seem to be relied on WB government’s word for Site selection feasibility and they might have seen Singur’s easy connectivity to Durganagar Expressway NH2 to keep the “NANO” Cost down.

Now the question is “Can such a situation is avoidable by making better decision through GIS & Mapping initiatives”.

My answer is: Yes

Such situtations are avoidable in future by :

• Proper ground reality needs assessment


• Proper survey, feasibility analysis with respect to location, human behavior, political and social aspects.
  

(All these information can be mapped and analyzed. All the leading GIS tools can be integrated with ERP applications and will be easily accessed by top leaders in the organizations).

Thanks.

Sushanta Kabi

In the next issue we will discuss " US Presedential Election 2009 : Its GIS & Mapping Perspectives".