IIT-M, Renault-Nissan to harness data, low-cost technology to reduce road accidents

Under the hackathon, IIT-M’s Connected Intelligent Urban Transportation Laboratory will build data-driven technologies to make public transport facilities in Tamil Nadu safer. Under this, the first project will equip public buses with sensors in selected districts of Tamil Nadu to collect data on why fatal accidents happen.

The second project will try to use this data in developing “low-cost technologies”, which will be used in public buses in areas such as Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur in Tamil Nadu.

A joint statement by IIT-M and RNTBCI said that more than 10% of all fatal accidents in 2019 were caused by public buses in Chennai – a figure more than double the average for the rest of India.

Kapil Saratkar, Assistant Commissioner, Chennai City Traffic Police said, “Around 4,500 traffic cops are deployed by the Tamil Nadu Police to manage the traffic in the city. However, there is a manpower shortage and these policemen face many difficulties in managing the traffic in the city.”

To help address this, IIT-M director V. Kamakoti said the data generated from the initiative could not only help bring short-term results, but also “enhance entrepreneurial ideas.”

The results of this entire program will be released in a year’s time, and upon completion will be handled by the ‘Center for Innovation’, the independent student body of IIT-M.

In October 2021, researchers from IIT Bombay and Guwahati launched a research project that sought to use publicly available road infrastructure data and geographic information to provide relevant speed warnings in vehicles, to prevent accidents related to overspeeding. can be reduced.

From July 2019, the Indian government has made speed warnings mandatory in all consumer vehicles in the country, which the researchers from the aforementioned IITs considered a low-efficiency, one-size-fits-all effort to improve road safety.