Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT Madras) Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS) has launched a landmark ‘Data Driven Hyperlocal Intervention’ (DDHI) programme to address road crashes across India.

Taken up under the aegis of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), this initiative prioritises 100 districts identified as high accident-burden zones through comprehensive analysis of national crash data.

According to the MoRTH’s “Road Accidents in India 2022” report, there were 4,61,312 reported accidents, resulting in 1,68,491 fatalities and 4,43,366 injuries. While many of these accidents were attributed to human error, a significant proportion are due to localised challenges.

To address these challenges, the top 100 districts have been prioritised for intervention. The approach will be tailored to the local needs of each district and aligned with the CoERS’s 5E model of road safety – Engineering, Enforcement, Education, Emergency Care, and Empathy.

This initiative will adopt a bottom-up approach, empowering District Road Safety Councils (DRSCs), led by the respective chairperson, to lead decision-making and implementation. The DDHI framework empowers councils to design targeted interventions tailored to district-specific road conditions, behavioural patterns, and geographical constraints.

V Umashankar, IAS, Secretary, MoRTH, said, “There are multiple factors contributing to every accident. Each accident has a story behind it and unravelling that story is best done by the local level. This initiative marks a paradigm shift in how we address road safety — by empowering districts with actionable insights and decentralised tools. With the right data, leadership and community engagement, we can reduce preventable fatalities and make our roads significantly safer for every citizen.”

CoERS has collaborated closely with MoRTH and State Governments to develop a scalable, evidence-based strategy, underpinned by data from the electronic Detailed Accident Report (eDAR), formerly known as the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD), and powered by Sanjaya, a location intelligence platform launched by Shri Nitin Gadkari., Hon’ble Minister for Road Transport and Highways.