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