As rightly said by 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.”

In line with the Prime Minister’s vision, Minister of Road Transport & Highways Government of India, Nitin Gadkari, at the second edition of Intel’s All.ai summit 2021, talked about how he envisions amalgamating technology with road transport.

He expressed his delight in being a part of the summit and sharing his thoughts on making roads safer and mobility smarter to bring people home safely every day.

India has a huge population, limited sources, demographic cultural and language diversities, social-economic slabs, and several similar issues.

Correct, ethical, inclusive, efficient adoption of technology can allow us to overcome challenges and empower our citizens.

Mr. Gadkari added, “Being the transport minister and an admirer of innovative technology I am very much supportive towards application of world’s best and most advanced technologies for transport related issues.”

He shared his vision around citizen-centric transport system where the movement and people and goods are safe, secure, efficient, affordable, accessible, and sustainable. India is not only the largest democracy but is a nation of bright young people; engineers, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

As per the current global scenario, AI is one of the most advanced emerging technology applied everywhere, from speech and image recognition to space exploration. In an actual sense, AI is an integration of humans and technology, making the machines think, act, and perform beyond human capacities. This technology can help in problems in the most efficient way bringing comfort, reliability, safety while improving knowledge sharing and bringing transparency. This will improve communications that are critical to improvising the delivery systems.

AI-enabled technologies could help develop smart, safe, and sustainable mobility systems. It can handle huge data generated in traffic activities which can be analyzed to address and solve problems.

He explained how facing a challenge of non-availability of reliable organized and real-time data sets which can be solved by AI-enabled machines in data management and processing. Moreover, issues like traffic congestion which causes delays, pollution, and safety concerns, is usually a result of demand-supply miscalculation. This is where we can use AI-based tools to accurately measure and predict traffic conditions and take preventive measures and avoid congestion.

Road safety is a huge concern globally for most developing economies like India. India accounts for about 5 lac accidents annually which is almost the highest in the world. This leads to around 1.5 lac deaths and around 3 lacs serious injuries.

“Road safety is our utmost priority; we cannot afford to lose our people and it is our clear commitment that by 2024 we will reduce the deaths and accidents by 50%.” Said Mr. Gadkari.

He also talked about how the ministry is working on three strategies; building better roads across controlled multi-length divided highways and fixing issues with already existing road infrastructure to promote safety. Secondly, putting efforts in training drivers and spreading road safety awareness among the public and thirdly implementing advanced technologies, electronic surveillance system for safe and efficient traffic movement on Indian highways.

There are huge opportunities for the application of AI in the transport sector, which removes human interference and the possibility of errors and hence improves the efficiency and stay in traffic movement.

“My vision is to use AI for enforcement purposes and specifically where state government machineries are failing for any reason.” Said Mr. Gadkari.

He stated his areas where he is looking forward to encouraging the usage of AI.

1. For enforcement of some of the urgent and pressing areas such as enforcement of lane discipline at national highways for trucks
2. Over-speeding and detection of seatbelts in vehicles
3. Crash investigations
4. Pattern of accident on black spots
5. Fatigue indicators and sleep detectors for drivers
6. Advanced vehicle collision avoidance system

AI can be used to combine data from the above-mentioned sources and can be used to make suitable changes at the policy level. He touched upon the 4Es of road safety; engineering, enforcement, education, and emergency health services which can adopt AI for improved road safety.

He also talked about how the private sector can extend its support and provide technological assistance. Engineering students and third-party agencies can also collaborate to study and submit accident analysis reports using AI.

Mr. Gadkari also talked in detail about iRASTE, an Artificial Intelligence-powered project, on a pilot basis in Nagpur in Maharashtra with the aim of reducing accidents by 50 percent in Vidarbha’s biggest city. This is a collaborative effort between the government, Intel, INAI, IIIT-Hyderabad, CSIR-CRRI (Central Road Research Institute), Mahindra & Mahindra and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), the project will focus on vehicle safety, mobility analysis and road infrastructure safety to move towards a “Vision Zero” accident scenario.

The minister welcomed corporates and industry partners to submit their proposals and work in collaboration with the ministry for a better tomorrow. He mentioned that around 4000 NGOs are

already working in the direction of road safety and it would be wonderful if they could be sensitized with AI-enabled tools to further improve road safety. Academia, industry, research institutions, and government together can improve the scenario of road safety and advanced mobility

Image: File image from World Economic Forum