The Accident Research team from Bosch India’s Advanced Autonomous Safety Systems and Corporate Research department have come together to unveil a unique study that identifies and analyses the socio-economic loss due to road traffic accidents in India.
The two entities studied and analysed global road accident data over the last two decades to obtain results that can be effectively used to identify new products, business strategies, and road safety policies. Bosch claims this to be the first of its kind study to utilise suitable weighting factors from the Road Accident Sampling System of India (RASSI) database to offer a holistic view on the national scale.
This data will serve as a reference for policy makers to derive cost-benefit estimates for economic loss incurred by the respective stakeholders through the Human Capital (HC) method, Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) method and iRAP’s Rule of Thumb (RoT) method.
Road Accidents In India
India for a long time has held the dubious record of being the country with the maximum number of road fatalities globally. The country witnessed 151,113 road deaths in the year 2019 and the Bosch study stated that this alarming number is due to increased urbanisation, motorisation and per capita income.
Curbing the menace of road accidents requires tactical road safety policies and their effective implementation, said Bosch. The meagre availability of factual data regarding socio-economic loss due to road accidents is proving to be a hindrance to the ideation and implementation of the policies.
In 1999-2000, the then Planning Commission had estimated the social costs of road accidents to be $7.9 bn, which was roughly 3% of the country’s GDP. This value was further revised to $14.3 bn in 2011.
Irrespective of the method used, the total socio-economic cost due to road traffic accidents in India is $15.71-38.81 bn, which translates to an estimated loss of around 0.55-1.35% of India’s GDP in 2019.
According to RASSI weighted data, nearly 781,668 vehicles were involved in road accidents in 2019, amounting to $0.57-1.81 bn in damages. The damage costs include $356.2 mn for commercial vehicles, $69.8 mn for cars, $18.7 mn for two-wheelers, and $39.6 mn for buses, the study found.
The study further found that the total medical cost of the road traffic accidents victims in 2019 was close to $0.82-1.92 bn, while the total productivity loss due to male fatalities was $10.9 bn and female fatalities was $1.44 bn – this is considering the average Net National income per capita for male and female employees.
The total productivity loss in the year 2019 owing to serious injuries accounted for $123 mn, while minor injuries accounted for $14 mn.
In Conclusion
This study by Bosch is one of the first to put the current accident figures in relation to the economic costs specifically for India and can be used as a basis for policy makers to further develop their studies to derive cost-benefit estimates for different measures. The report provides OEMs, fleet operators and transport authorities with an accurate view of accident situations and can be leveraged to tailor technological innovations, countermeasures, and policies to make Indian roads safer, the company said.
Speaking at the report launch, Girikumar Kumaresh, Senior Program Manager, Head Accident Research India, Advanced Autonomous Safety Systems, Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions said, “Road traffic accident casualties bring about a great deal of human suffering in terms of social, medical and economic costs, and it is crucial we mitigate them. The absence of data regarding the loss due to road accidents was the motivating factor for us to study and analyse the socio-economic impact of road accidents in India.”
Kumaresh further stated that the research is a testament to two years of hard work combining studies from the World Bank and World Economic Forum, and over 50 international journals underpinned by Bosch’s innovative method to estimate socio-economic loss due to road traffic accidents in India.