Indicators like the number of traffic
accidents and fatalities and injuries they cause are typically considered to
quantify road safety. These indications, however, need to be revised to define
road safety. The primary issue is that there needs to be a clear definition of
what signs to use or that it needs to be included in the description of road
safety. Due to these constraints, comparing the status of cities, states, and
nations in terms of road safety and producing follow-ups on the situation are
both challenging. However, using just one indicator can occasionally hide some
problems with the current state of road safety. For example, the newest NCRB
data states that according to WHO, the number of road accident deaths increased
by about 17% between 2020 and 2021, showing an increase in the number of
fatalities per 1,000 vehicles in India. In addition, 1.55 lakh persons perished
in accidents on Indian roadways in 2021, an increase from 1.33 lakh in 2020, a
year marked by a significant period of national lockdown. In 2021, 4.03 lakh
traffic accidents were reported, up from 3.54 lakh the year before.
The Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi will host the
Global Road Construction & Safety Conference on November 30, 2022. The
conference's topic, "Building Sustainable Infrastructure with Emerging Age
Technology & Road Safety 2.0,"
aims to direct new technologies toward hastening socio-economic growth.
The conference will be co-chaired by Mr
Akhilesh Srivastava, a veteran in the industry. In addition to serving as the
government of Uttarakhand's IT advisor and directing the World Economic Forum's
Road Safety 2.0 initiative, he was the
previous CGM of the NHAI. His most recent position is Road Safety Brand
Ambassador for the India Chapter of the International Road Federation. Mr
Akhilesh Srivastava has worked in NHAI as Chief General Manager (IT &
Commercial Operations). He introduced numerous digital technologies, including
drones, LiDAR, Geospatial, project management systems, etc., during his tenure
at NHAI. The NHAI Data Lake, another futuristic and original invention of Mr
Akhilesh Srivastava, has gained international recognition as one of the best
digital solutions for end-to-end project management systems for substantial
infrastructure projects with a variety of stakeholders.
One of his most impressive successes is the
adoption of FASTag. With efficient and transparent toll collection at more than
1000 toll booths nationwide, the FASTag changed the logistics and roadway
sectors. With more than 100 lakh daily transactions and a revenue collection of
more than Rs 120 crore, the FASTag is one of the world's largest electronic
toll collection systems (bringing annualised revenue of Rs 40,000 crores to the
government of India). This has increased revenue and drastically decreased toll
plaza wait times from over 8 minutes to just a few seconds, saving at least Rs
20,000 crores yearly wasted in fuel wastage and lowering carbon emissions from
fuel burning at toll plazas by at least 6 million tonnes. He held several prestigious
positions, including COO of IHMCL and became its Board Member.
In addition, the best-selling and widely read
book "Digital Construction Management," written by Mr Akhilesh Srivastava, was instrumental
in introducing digital construction instruction in numerous colleges and
universities.
His large-scale visionary thinking with minute
detailed operational strategies makes him one of the best program implementors
in the world. It rightly bestows him the honours of Road Safety Ambassador by
the top international and national organisations. His endless and untiring
efforts in creating awareness about next-generation road safety solutions
through continuous road safety articles, books, numerous meetings with
ecosystem stakeholders, hundreds of social media posts, and national &
international seminars/workshops quickly brought a positive change in the
mindset of people and raised hope. He demonstrated through innovative pilots
that this multi-layered complex problem could be tackled, and road accidents
could be reduced substantially & quickly with the next-generation
technology-based solutions rather than blindly copying the western solutions.
The complexity of road safety in India differs from that of western countries
because of multiple social-cultural-geographical issues and mixed traffic
comprising high-speed vehicles, two-wheelers, autos, bikes, pedestrians and
even animals on the road; merely copying the western solutions will not work.
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