How India is driving road safety with technology

From recognising vehicle number plates to drones that assist with blind spots and crowd management, technology has revolutionised road safety in many Indian cities.

“Technology is being used in diverse ways and for multiple advantages – ranging from speed analysis to real-time alerts,” said U.K. Patel, regional enforcement officer at Gujarat’s Road Safety Authority.

Apart from the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD), which police personnel can enter accident details via a mobile app, the authority also uses analytics to identify accident-prone areas, supplemented by data from on-ground personnel.

“It helps with fast and effective black-spot analysis,” Patel said, adding that dashboards have been developed to provide insights into accident factors such as the age of individuals and fatality timings. “Notably, there has been an 8% drop in road fatalities over the span of a year.”

Punjab is another pioneering state that has adopted a navigation system that provides real-time alerts on black spots and traffic updates to citizens via the Mappls app. Earlier this year, it became the first state in India to map all its black spots to promote road safety and streamline traffic management.

In Odisha, the state police recently deployed drones supplied by India’s IG Drones to manage traffic and crowds during the Ratha Yatra chariot festival, attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

“AI-powered technology was integrated for real-time congestion detection, vehicle counting, and drone surveillance,” said Dayal Gangwar, additional director general of the Odisha Police. “This provided invaluable insights for smoother traffic flow and crowd control.

“For the first time, devotees received real-time traffic updates via an innovative WhatsApp chatbot. A meticulous mobility plan, including high-capacity parking zones, ensured seamless crowd management during the peak phases of the festival,” he added.

Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya, founder and CEO of IG Drones, noted that traffic management at events like the Ratha Yatra involves dynamic and unpredictable human behaviour, unlike the more static and controlled environments of mines or factories.

“Real-time monitoring must account for rapid changes and immediate response needs, making it more complex and demanding. The ability to adapt quickly to unexpected situations is crucial for ensuring smooth operations,” he added.

Besides traffic and safety authorities, young tech innovators in India are also addressing the gravity of road safety in India. Vanisha Kheterpal, a 16-year-old student and founder of SurakshaAI, is working on using AI and sensors to create pre-emptive signals, especially on blindspots, for road users.

“Living in a city like Jaipur in North India, I’ve experienced road safety dangers many times. It spurred me to work on this area and create a blindspot warning and collision prevention system at various traffic signals, especially at risky curves and unpredictable turns,” she said.

Meanwhile, IG Drones is exploring advanced AI-driven crowd analytics and predictive modeling tailored for large-scale events such as the Kumbh Mela, the largest religious congregation in India, with millions of attendees. 

Sanghapriya said the company aims to integrate facial recognition technology to enhance security and traffic management, and deploy advanced tools to better predict and manage crowd behaviour.

So far, the use of technology has positively impacted road safety in India. For example, the Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway between Mumbai and Pune saw a 40% reduction in deaths between 2016 and 2022, thanks to the use of electronic enforcement and other tools. Data from iRAD has also helped the Tamil Nadu state government reduce road crash deaths by 2.8% between 2018 and 2022.

However advanced, implementing technology is not free from challenges. Conducting drone surveillance at Ratha Yatra, for instance, required significant planning and training for personnel to operate the drones and interpret data. Other challenges include ensuring seamless integration with existing surveillance systems and maintaining connectivity in crowded areas.

In Indian cities, critics have observed an influx of complacency and reduced presence of authorities in traffic management and enforcement after introducing technology solutions. It has been suggested that technology should complement, and not replace, human oversight for sensitive governance areas.

Ultimately, technology can and should help democratise safety on India’s roads. “Many in-built safety systems in vehicles are limited to expensive cars, but road safety is for everyone,” said Kheterpal of SurakshaAI. “Technology should not differentiate between the rich and the poor.”