Did you know that road accidents eat into 3.14% of India’s GDP annually translating to a loss of INR 4 lakh crore.
Manish Manek, Chief VLE- Head of Programme Management, MG Motor India, said at Mobility FutureTech organised by Mobility Outlook in Delhi on Thursday that India has roughly around 60 lakh km of road infrastructure with highways taking up just i5%. Despite this, around 61% of road fatalities occur on highways at an annual average of 1.5 lakh deaths per year.
With road infrastructure continuously developing in India, road deaths are likely to grow going by the present rate which is an alarming thought.
According to Manek, while OEMs are looking at technologies like ADAS to reduce these fatalities, there are many challenges to face worldwide when it comes to developing such technologies such as traffic events and changing road layouts among others.
India has unique challenges like special vehicles and objects on road, irregular road markings and traffic indiscipline. In this backdrop, stakeholders are working towards developing solutions. Nearly 70% of the innovations are happening in connected, autonomous, safety and electric (CASE).
Manek said proper regulations were critical to development of technologies such as ADAS. Apart from regulators seeking quick development of ADAS systems, around 55% customers believe they can ensure road safety.
He added that while regulations for ADAS were being developed -- and Tier 1 suppliers too are developing relevant components --- OEMs needed to bring stakeholders together to fast forward the development of these systems.
A lot of data collection is also needed to make ADAS features work well in India. With discussions in place on homologation, OEM should prioritise development of ADAS technologies, Manek said.
While a lot of work has been done on developing the technology, development is still to keep pace and OEMs should develop features in a phased manner by targeting technologies catering to the elephant in the room, he concluded.
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