M A I N   N E W S

Indian roads to get star safety ratings
Safest roads will get five stars, one star will be awarded to high-risk roads
Man Mohan
Our Roving Editor

Road engineers from Karnataka, Gujarat, Assam and Andhra Pradesh are currently undergoing a five-day training here about ‘how to judge a road’. Engineers from other states will also be given similar training in phases. Low ratings will put pressure on the local authorities to improve the roads quality to prevent traffic accidents. The aggregate length of roads in the country has risen 10-fold from 0.4 million km in 1950-51 to 4.24 million km by 2009-10. The length of national highways, arterial roads for interstate movement of passengers and goods, is still around 71,500 km. The road transport demand is expected to grow by around 10 per cent a year in the backdrop of a targeted annual GDP growth of 9 per cent during the 11th Five Year Plan.

The Roads’ Star Rating Training is being imparted as part of the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) projects funded by the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility. It involves safety assessments to ensure that roads that are critical to the country’s economic growth, trade and employment are also safe for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicle drivers.

It has been hosted by the Automobile Association of Upper India (AAUI), a well-known NGO working towards road safety. “The projects will help authorities save lives by targeting safety improvements along high-risk sections of road,” said AAUI president and road safety expert TK Malhotra. The projects coincide with the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, which will be launched worldwide on May 11. The ‘iRAP three-state’ project involves inspections of some 3,500 km of roads across Karnataka, Gujarat and Assam. Inspections of three key corridors in Andhra have already been completed. The Indian Road Survey and Management is collecting detailed road inspection data using the latest digital imaging technology.

The inspections will focus on more than 30 different road design attributes that are known to influence the likelihood of a crash and its severity: intersection layout, road cross-section and markings, roadside hazards, facilities for motorcyclists and the provision of footpaths and safe crossing points for pedestrians.

“After the inspections are completed,” said Malhotra, “road safety ‘star ratings’ will be awarded to each road, with five stars representing the safest roads and one star representing the highest risk roads.” India’s main roads are under huge pressure and in great need of modernisation to handle the increased requirements of a growing economy. Road maintenance remains under-funded and some 40% villages lack access to all-weather roads.