How
exhaustive is the Accident Research Report and can you throw some light on the findings?
How useful are these reports when it comes to identifying key issues related to
traffic safety?
Accident Research (AR) in general helps to
identify key issues on traffic safety by analyzing in-depth accident data. Such
data is collected in four locations in India currently (Status January, 2015).
They are Coimbatore, Mumbai-Pune Expressway, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. Since 2010
there are more than 1000 cases collected. There are more than 1000 cases
currently available. This data is representative for rural area and will be
extrapolated towards India in order to get drawings on a national level.
Thus AR has to consider
·
Data
collection including pictures, measured accident site, vehicle and injury
information from all participants (permissions needed from state police,
hospital w.r.t to access of accident site).
·
Data
all anonymised afterwards.
·
Re-coding
of ~700 parameters per crash involving all type of vehicles and Vulnerable Road
Users (VRU -- pedestrian, cyclists, motorcycles, rickshaw, tractors, etc.) and
stored in a database and digital case (including pictures).
·
Information
partly derived either from pictures or directly gathered at accident site.
·
Data
coded using international coding manual including accident type catalogue which
was converted from German Accident Type Catalogue to left hand traffic. This
enables international comparison of accidents in India against other nations
more easily.
·
Drawing
of accident site on a scaled sketch.
·
Reconstruction
of accident including pre-crash manoeuvre based on scaled sketch.
Analysis considers accident related factors
like infrastructure, driver behavior (e.g. use of seatbelts and helmets) and
their reaction in pre-crash maneuvers and vehicle safety related issues.
When
did India figure in this accident report and how difficult was it to collate information in the country? Though India
accounts for 10pc of global road crash fatalities and the country has yet to
adopt a system of scientific investigation and analysis of road accident, how
could Bosch derive its much needed inputs required for compiling this report?
Since 2009, only national annual statistics
have been available from Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) and National
Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP). This report
covers only simple basic information e.g. number of fatalities, accidents,
involved vehicle types etc. Such data only is limited in information for
Research Engineers in order to identify key issues, such as “How many accidents
with motorcycles involved?” is not available in the existing reports. Therefore
Bosch Corporate Research (CR/AEV1) Accident Research started to investigate to
establish or find appropriate partner for In-depth accident investigation. In 2009
we conducted a pilot study together with JPR in Coimbatore with 50 example
cases. We then continued the investigation by establishing a consortium which
is successfully established in several countries and promoted this activity
towards other Suppliers, OEMs or any other Institutes dealing with Accident
Research. From 2010 onwards the project was called RASSI – Road Accident
Sampling System for India (www.rassi.org.in). Lots of resistance was faced throughout
these investigations due to the fact that access has to be given to an accident
site and furthermore injury information in adequate time frame after the
collision happened.
A key capability of Bosch Accident Research
is to identify key findings w.r.t to infrastructure, education, enforcement or
vehicle safety related issues out of the database and its coded parameters.
As
compared to developed countries, where does Indian stand in terms of road
safety? Also, if there was one country that we could benchmark for its absolute
road safety measure which one would it be and why?
In terms of road safety India is roughly
25years behind, in comparison to Germany or Japan.
Implementing state-of-the art technology,
enforcement of usage of available technology and education on safety aspects
either from behavior as well as from technology can bring India on par on
Western countries by decade. For this all stakeholders have to collaborate
together this is industry, government and society.
Very
briefly, what has been Bosch’s contribution towards improving road safety
worldwide and in particular India?
Bosch mainly contributes in the part of
vehicle safety and education (not infrastructure) by introducing various
technologies like Car Antilock-Braking System, Electronic Stability Control,
Passive Safety (Airbag Control Unit) and Motorcycle Antilock-Braking System
(including Motorcycle Stability Control) and various other technologies which
currently linked to Driver Assistance Systems such as Automatic Emergency
Braking Systems, Lane Departure Warning and Lane Keeping Support Systems etc.
In India, Bosch established Accident
Research in order to understand the accident situation as first. After that the
usage of in-depth accident data with extensive analysis of these data bring out:
a) The benefit estimation of various safety
products (state-of-the-art technologies) specific to Indian infrastructure and
driving behavior.
b) Accidents which at least Indian specific
and not covered with a certain technology e.g. “Make in India”.
These reports were supported to various
stakeholders like policy makers, regulation agencies, OEM and automotive
company manufactures in various technical committees. This brought out an
evidence based policy making with respect to Indian scenarios. For example the
Motorcycle ABS benefit estimation conducted in 2013 (average avoidance
potential less than 25 pc). This made Indian policy makers to consider a key
legislation decisions for Indian road safety. The same methodology was
successfully applied from Bosch AR using German data (GIDAS data) and US data
in 2007 and 2009 respectively.
What
key features you feel need to be incorporated in the government’s policy
framework to make vehicle safety norms stringent and improve road safety?
A key feature is a post-safety education
(e.g. encourage seat belt usage, helmet usage, headrest) and stringent
enforcement of the available norms.
India
has one of the largest two wheeler markets in the world so what safety features
should be incorporated by OEMs for the vehicles and what kind of policy needs
to be implemented by the government to make roads safer for two wheelers? In
the four wheeler space, do we see India gradually getting better when it comes
to safety features in its cars?
We are already seeing the positive
proactive measures taken by the Indian government in order to make the road
safe. For example new legislation (Motorcycle ABS and car airbags), new safety
bill and Bharat-NCAP tests, star ratings, etc.