The Role of Design & Engineering in Road Safety.

Authority engineers, consultant engineers and concessionaire engineers, are the pillars of safety and looked upon by the society. It is their joint effort that ensures the success of any project. We cannot afford any lapse and ignorance in the effort of building roads for the nation, writes Himanshu Shrimal.

India accounts for almost 11% of all road accident deaths in the world, according to a WHO Global Report on Road Safety, 2018. That is more than 10% of the entire world count of death due to accidents!

Being the second highest populated country, it makes this figure easy to digest, but Road Safety IS AN ISSUE in the country.

In India, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, over 1.54 lakh people died in road accidents in 2019.  To put this into perspective, the approximate number of deaths due to Covid-19 within one year in India is also 1.54 lakhs! And Covid has been brought under control within mere 9 months!

But the loss of lives due to road accidents have become a part of life here.

What I find most worrying is the fact that all these factors contributing to road accident deaths have been constantly increasing in percentage as compared to earlier years, leading to ever-rising cumulative figures. In fact, a total of 1.48 lakh people died due to road crashes in India in 2015, as per the National Crime Records Bureau. That number has increased to 1.54 lakh in 2019, meaning a 4% increase in 4 years!

These statistics only serve to illustrate the obvious, don't they?

Lack of respect for rules, paucity of enforcement, emergency care and above all the structural design and quality of roads are to be blamed for.

Road safety has become a life-or-death issue for millions of Indians. The situation is far graver than you and I could have imagined and it needs to be dealt with, right now! Because we are not just losing lives, we are losing the future!

Road Accidents & the Economy

In 2009, according to NCRB records, 1,26,896 people lost their lives due to road accidents in India. 10 years later in 2019, that figure stands at 1,54,732 deaths - a 22% increase!

Why do you think the figure is so high? The answer lies in India's rapid development.

Between 2001 and 2020, the per-capita income of Indians increased more than five times, from Rs 17,917 to Rs 94,954 (Advancing Road Safety in India, Report by National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences). With development, of course, we got increasing industrialization, easy availability of motor vehicles, higher purchasing power and increased travelling!

To facilitate this, we also rapidly expanded the roads and highways network. I have personally witnessed and supervised some of those in my over 33 years of career in the PWD as a client, before moving over to the consultant side for the government at one of the nation's leading infrastructure consulting firm Dhruv Consultancy Ltd.

Every death or disability is an unthinkable loss and burden to families across the country. With young males constituting the highest number of casualties due to road accidents, in many cases the deceased or disabled person is also the breadwinner of the family, plunging the families in financial crisis. Not to mention the fact that the younger population is the future of the country.

If I have to do the math, the collective loss to the Indian economy is substantial. Road accidents cost approximately 3% of India's total GDP to the national economy! That is a loss we cannot afford, apart from the larger human loss that we already bear.

A Glance at Authority Action

Global organizations like the UN and the WHO have been working closely with India, to help us find inroads to this issue. 2011-2020 was declared as the Decade of Action on Road Safety, emphasizing the 5 pillars of road safety.

- Road safety management

- Building safer roads

- Designing safer vehicles

- Safer user behaviour, and

- Improved post-crash care.

This year, January 18th to February 17th, has been declared as the road safety month to raise awareness and sensitize the masses about safety on roads.

In 2017, the Member States of the UN including India also adopted 12 Global Road Safety Performance Targets to be achieved by 2030.

Similarly, at the national level, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has formed 4 working groups on 4Es of Road Safety viz- Education, Enforcement, Engineering, Emergency care. These groups have recommended both long-term and short-term measures for reducing road accidents in the country.

The Supreme Court also issued a set of directives in 2017 to facilitate road safety, which are being implemented by the union and state governments. Having said that, is it enough only to expect action from the government, judiciary or global institutions?

Or is it also necessary to introspect, as individuals, as responsible citizens, on what role we can play in reducing this threat, just as we did with Covid-19?

And this brings me to my point- to effect a fundamental change in a country with 1.3 billion people, all the 4Es of road safety are highly important and need effective, harmonious implementation.

Engineering Safer Roads

The integrity of any structure depends on the way it has been built. The design, the materials used and the science applied. Of all the 4 Es, engineering holds the primary onus when it comes to ensuring public safety on roads.

Over the last 37 years, I have seen the public road infrastructure ecosystem in India, transform, for the good. The roads that we use today are far better and superior to the ones that were before. We are not just talking about the level of connectivity, but the quality and durability of roads in general today, albeit with some areas for improvement.

Government and MoRTH Policy-level Initiatives for Road Safety

With initiatives like the BharatmalaPariyojana and the National Infrastructure Pipeline, the nation's road infrastructure development is underway on a fast track mode. Since March 2020, the Nation has been in a state of healthcare emergency with the spread of global Covid-19 pandemic. But that did not deter the Government's focus. Instead, infrastructure development progressed faster than before.

But we are not there yet.

In 2005, MoRTH rolled out a comprehensive initiative to tackle the issue of ensuring safety on roads. By outlining the National Road Safety Policy, the MoRTH is working on multiple fronts:

- Safer infrastructure

- Safer vehicles

- Awareness and education

- Safety laws

- Emergency care

- The legal, financial and regulatory environment.

In 2016, the Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill was a revolutionary step taken to create an exhaustive and legislative framework for road safety in India. The Bill, introduced by Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari highlighted the key policy-level changes towards making road travel safer.

Any engineering process is governed by the standards, procedures and a system put in place to control the quality and efficiency of the output. This applies to civil engineering as well. The National Road Safety Council was set up to see to it that all the road projects conform to a standard system outlined by the council while building any national or state roads. It has all the crucial safety standards that need to be adhered to while building roads.

This was the part where the government has and still is playing the role of a regulator and a master planner to put the country on the international path of growth.

Actually, the problem lies in what comes after this.

Let us come to that in a while.

Design Principles Used to Engineer Safer Roads

Any stretch of road, from point A to point B needs to be designed first, based on the land survey, surrounding population, topography, traffic analysis, vehicular traffic density, to name a few. These are the starting points to planning a route, even before the project is rolled out for tendering, all over the world.

Now, as per the norms put down by the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), and even by the principles of road design, we engineers have to make certain provisions in the design, keeping in mind the psychology of the driver. We call this concept, the ‘Forgiving Road Design'.

It is not a question of being pessimistic but of accepting what we are. We human beings make mistakes, it is part of our nature. Of course, not all errors have the same costs. The ones we make while driving can be very costly. Nevertheless, the way a road is designed can in many cases determine whether those errors cause a tragedy or just a small scare.

Forgiving Road Design, is a concept used to make roads safer by foreseeing the driver's fatal mistakes, and making provisions on the road, structurally, to keep him safe. To avoid or minimise the harm and consequences of traffic accidents, the idea is applied to roads that have the necessary means to minimise damage and danger in case of an accident. It is applied most effectively on conventional highways like in case the vehicle should run off the road. If this happens, these roads make it easier for the vehicle to get back on the road.

One cannot skip this part while designing any road in the country, as the safety standards put down by the NRSC cover this aspect well.

Gadkari, in a webinar on Road Safety in 2020, said he has undertaken a lot of initiatives to reduce road accidents including correcting black spots or spots witnessing a high number of accidents due to bad road designing or other road engineering or related flaws.

Responsibility of the Stakeholders

We took a detour after the ‘government initiatives at the policy level' section. Now, after reading about the design provisions for road safety, did it ring any bells in your mind?

Does it make you question, as a fellow engineer, a concessionaire, an analyst - where are we going wrong?

One might say, education and awareness. That comes later. Way after, the roads have already been built.

I know that you know the answer to this. You have seen it, experienced it, in many instances. One might say, it is a part of the game, the system.

No, it's not. Let me prod further.

When any road project is declared, there are multiple stakeholders involved right from the beginning. The DPR consultant conducts a detailed study of the project scope and presents a ‘Detailed Project Report' (DPR) outlining the actual requirements of the project. This DPR is then floated out to call for tenders and the bidding process begins.

Checkpoint 1: Once a concessionaire has been assigned and the project has been awarded, the Independent Engineer approves the detailed design of the project before the construction commences.

Checkpoint 2: While the project is under execution, a supervising team monitors the project throughout its duration and signs off once completed.

Checkpoint 3: Then the O&M is carried out by the maintenance team.

Checkpoint 4: There are multiple teams involved at all these points, whom I collectively call the ‘stakeholders'.

I have mentioned checkpoints here, because these are the points at which decisions are made. These are the moments lapses occur. Lapse due to lack of knowledge, human error, miscommunication….but unintentional. These are still acceptable and can be dealt with. What becomes a deeper cause of concern is when people who are responsible for taking key decisions at these checkpoints default, causing misappropriations. For reasons that are at times intentional or serve a personal motive.

These lapses have brought us to the brink of being touted as the most unsafe roads to drive on in the world!

Is there a lack of intelligent talent in the country? No. Absolutely not. What lacks is integrity, which I mentioned way before in my narrative.

The government cannot intervene at grassroots level to check whether the quality of material used or engineering is precise enough! It has a country of 1.3Bn people to run! It is upto us to take our jobs seriously, respect it and execute it with pride!

“We are working on fast track mode to achieve the goal with the cooperation of all stakeholders, especially the state governments,” Gadkari said during the webinar.

I am a part of the stakeholder group that is involved in shaping up the infrastructure, the lifeline of the nation. And it is equally my responsibility to respect my job and think about those countless innocent lives that depend on my judgment and knowledge while I design the roads with my team.

It is a huge burden to bear and hence the most respected one, yet at times, dangerous in our country. Ideally, I feel, a single team, apart from the concessionaire, is supposed to have the unanimous control right from the DPR state to the O&M. That way there is a common point of supervision, responsibility and accountability at all times, keeping the process lean, without any miscommunications or blame games.

Endnote

For roads in India to become safer and road safety a way of life, will take some time. It would need swift policy level and system level changes to bring about more awareness among the masses and more ownership among stakeholders. The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has announced INR 5.54 lakh crore to be pushed into infrastructure projects with INR 5000 crore only for the NHAI. The government, although strung up for funds due to Covid, has made provisions to better our roads and logistics. This will also boost the use of advanced technology and innovation in building better and safer roads. But what remains to be seen is who gets the benefit of these fresh provisions?

The citizens or…?

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