On 13th January 2020, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways launched a new project to decrease road accidents by the usage of technology named iRAD.
iRAD which stands for Integrated Road Accident Database Project is an application to collect data related to road accidents in short order. This application will help the government to scrutinize and study the reason behind road accidents and help take precautionary measures to decrease such accidents in turn condensing the loss of lives.
The system has been developed by the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) and the implementation will be done by the National Informatics Centre. The World Bank will subsidize 258 crore in the project.
Moreover, the proposal will be implemented in six states with the highest fatality by road accidents, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.A two-day orientation and training programme on iRAD app was conducted by the Ministry for the selected districts of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.
The iRAD app will allow the police personnel to enter the details about the road accident right away including photos and videos, subsequently creating a unique ID for the accident. Thereafter, a Public Works Department’s engineer can arrive and examine the site where the accident took place and record any constructional mishap while setting up the road and is updated in the application, and thereafter the government takes safety measures, and the accidents taking place is controlled.
“The basic iRAD app has been developed and will be customized/ integrated as per the requirements of concerned States/UTs. Mobile app of iRAD is available for Android platform, and for other platforms like iOS , it will be available shortly,” the ministry said in a statement.
The data received can be useful in knowing the cause of accident which will directly improve the road infrastructure plans and data can be synced with systems that are helpful in reduction of the accidents.
