News

Valuable data collection in India comprised in new SAFER project

Feb, 18 2022

We have a new exciting project in the portfolio; Safe and Secure Transport corridors in India, in which we aim to build valuable cooperative knowledge about accidents and road user behavior in India, a country with great potential for improved road safety.

SITIS (Sweden-India Transport Innovation and Safety Partnership) was launched in Stockholm in February 2020 on the third global conference on road safety within UN with the vision to leverage the know-how of India and Sweden to accelerate progress and deployment of safe and sustainable transport solutions and actionable policies, contributing to significant progress of Indian transport system. 

One of the first projects within the partnership, “Safe and Secure Transport corridors in India”, is about collecting naturalistic driving data from buses in India. The project entails a long-distance coach over a corridor in customer service. The aim is to collects data e.g. about the driver, the vehicles, the passengers, the infrastructure as well as the surroundings like other vehicles, weather and road conditions. Example of research questions to be address are related to data analysis of the traffic system, weather conditions, driver behaviour, overall logistics, deploying connectivity solutions for critical moments, emergency response systems and the ability to communicate with the infrastructure. Also, the researchers will address the important question regarding how can relevant data be collected, stored and analysed in a cost-efficient manner. The total budget in this project is 9.74 MSEK, which of 2.5 MSEK from VINNOVA and 1.7MSEK from DST. The project, that will be concluded in June 2023 will be led by Sofie Vennersten, Volvo Group and SAFER’s activities will be coordinated by John-Fredrik Grönvall.

More activities in pipeline
Within the collaboration, Sweden also shares the Vision Zero and how to build a successful structure for implementing traffic safety-enhancing measures at several different levels in society in a strategic and systematic way. 

In 2022 more projects are about to start, for example a project about creating a national database for traffic accidents in India. In addition, research activities related to emergency vehicle response to support faster and safer transit from the accident spot to the trauma centre, will be explored. A high- level meeting with ministers from the two countries to further develop this valuable partnership are also being planned in the near future. SAFER partners include Autoliv, Volvo Group, Chalmers University of Technology, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) and the Swedish Transport Administration.

SAFER’s research area for Safety performance evaluation will host this project in its portfolio.