Road safety is one of the major challenges for a densely populated developing country like India. Indian roads fall witness to several road rule violations and negligence that may or may not be the cause of minor and major accidents. Therefore, a strong surveillance policy is significant in maintaining road safety. 

India accounted for 5 lakh road accidents every year, with over 1.5 lakh deaths. These numbers are one of the highest across the world.  

According to the Honorable Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, “The integration of humans and technology is the need of the hour to solve key societal problems and provide ease of living to citizens.”   

Here are some of the key AI initiatives of various state governments of India for enhancing traffic regulation and road safety. 

AI camera surveillance to reduce road accidents: Kerala government is planning to bring important roads in the state under the scanner of AI-based cameras to reduce road accidents by half by 2024. According to safety experts, traffic rules could be enforced effectively once the software evaluates the violation of the traffic rules. Then, the fines will automatically come into being. Once the model captures the breach of the road rules, the footage will go directly to the central government’s server.   

According to statistics, in India, over 150,000 lives are lost annually due to accidents. In addition, about 450,000 vehicle accidents are reported in the country every year, with the state of Kerala and other states contributing a fair share. 

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Bengaluru traffic police introduce an AI-enabled traffic management system: AI-enabled cameras will detect traffic violations and issue challans through SMSs to mobile phones. The special commissioner of police stated that the objective is to automatically detect traffic violations in a contactless manner and send auto-generated challans to the violators with minimum human interventions. The ITMS employs AI and ML to detect traffic violations automatically.  

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Intelligence Traffic Management System (ITMS): Intelligence Traffic Management System (ITMS) is an AI initiative deployed by the Delhi Police. As per the project the Delhi Police will use the 3D radar-based Red-Light Violation Detection Camera (RLVD) system at 24 junctions across Delhi to monitor the red-light violations and gantry-mounted radar-based system to detect over speeding. 

The system includes high-resolution cameras (7,000-8,000) with sensor-based real-time traffic volume count technology. These cameras include multidirectional infrared and colourless laser sensors which could count the traffic volume based on image pattern analysis. Each signal includes an IP-based public address system which could be used to communicate with the drivers. 

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 iRASTE for road safety: The project was implemented by a consortium led by INAI in collaboration with the Department of ITE&C, Govt. of Telangana & TSRTC. INAI (Applied AI Research Centre) and IHub-Data (TIH and NM-ICPS) at IIIT Hyderabad have been making significant progress in the focus domains of Mobility and Healthcare since it was launched as part of the Telangana Year of the AI effort. Project iRASTE (intelligent Solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering) applies a Safe Systems approach to road safety. The project will be extended to 200 buses following a satisfactory first phase that covered 14 buses. 

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KSRTC to deploy AI to improve road safety and driver efficiency: The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation’s (KSRTC) AI-based technologies aim to limit road accidents and improve passenger safety in buses. According to a report in Times of India, the corporation recently floated a tender for the implementation of an AI-powered Collision Warning System (CWS) and Driver Drowsiness System (DDS) for 1,044 buses. CWS will provide features like Forward Looking Collision Warning (FLCW), Lane Departure Warning (LDW) and Virtual Bumper and also generate real-time alerts.  

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Predictive AI for road safety: The government of India’s project iRaste seeks to use the predictive power of AI to reduce fatalities on Indian roads. The project has been piloted in Nagpur, Maharashtra, in collaboration with the Nagpur Municipal Corporation. The NMC vehicles will be installed with collision avoidance technology to reduce accidents and near misses by up to 60%; the sensors will identify the dynamic risk of the Nagpur road network to help agencies prevent and repair accident-prone zones, also called black spots.  

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