Govt. launches road accident database

News:Central Government has launched a central accident database called Integrated Road Accident Database(IRAD).

Facts:

About the IRAD:

• The Integrated Road Accident Database(IRAD) has been developed by the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras(IIT-M) and will be implemented by the National Informatics Centre(NIC).
• The database will help in analysing causes of road crashes and in devising safety interventions to reduce such accidents in the country.
• The system will be first piloted in the six States with highest fatalities from road crashes namely Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
• The IRAD will then be improved on the basis of the learning from the trial following which it will be rolled out across the country.

Working of IRAD:

• The IRAD mobile application will enable police personnel to enter details about a road accident, along with photos and videos, following which a unique ID will be created for the incident.
• Subsequently, an engineer from the Public Works Department or the local body will receive an alert on his mobile device. He or she will then visit the accident site, examine it, and feed the required details, such as the road design.
• Data thus collected will be analysed by a team at IIT-M, which will then suggest if corrective measures in road design need to be taken.
• Road users will also be able to upload data on road accidents on a separate mobile application, which is expected to go live from 1st April 2020.

Additional information:

Road accidents in India:

• According to the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways data,road accidents in India has killed around 1.5 lakh people every year between 2015 and 2017.
• This works out to a daily average of 400 or more deaths in each of the three years.
• Among states,Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of deaths in road accidents in each of the three years followed by Tamil Nadu.