Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) has developed a traffic management system that, if introduced, would help cut road accidents by 50 per cent in the country over a period of only five years.
The ARI estimates that an expenditure of around Tk 31 billion would be required to operate the system that includes speed enforcement, accident detection, emergency management, institutional capacity building and advanced research.
ARI director Professor Dr. Moazzem Hossain said the institute voluntarily developed the system at its own cost and made a presentation before the policymakers and stakeholders concerned at a recent meeting.
It also formulated a project on the traffic management system getting green signal from the relevant policymakers and submitted it to the ministry concerned in August last. "It's now awaiting government's approval," he told the FE
He said the project, if approved, would be implemented by Roads and Highways Department, Highway Police, Fire Service and Civil Defence, and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA). But the system would be controlled by the ARI.
The ARI will set up Operation Control Centre (OCC) at its office on BUET campus to oversee the implementation.
The project titled 'Strategic Accident Reduction Programme (SARP) is planned to be implemented in two phases.
The first phase will cost Tk 15 billion that would focus on decreasing accidents and the second phase to cost Tk16 billion with a focus on research and training.
The first phase is expected to reduce the road accidents by controlling over speeding drivers through punitive ticketing based on auto recording by radar speed enforcement camera.
Prof Hossain said it would reduce the number of casualties in road accidents by emergency response and rescue system based on digital communication.
According to the project, 2,000 kilometres of main national highways will be divided into 50 blocks.
Hi-tech digital speed radar cameras will be installed for every 2 km to transfer real time information through optical fibre connection to the OCC.
Prof Hossain said any sort of incident, risky attitude like over speeding, dangerous overtaking, violation of traffic rules sign-signal disobedience, information related to accident and so on will be monitored from the OCC.
He said that fully equipped team of fire service and civil department (FSCD) and Highway Police will be assigned for each of the blocks.
"The cameras will detect the vehicles those will cross the specified speed limit or conduct any other types of violation. The short message service (SMS) will be in use to send information from control room to the respective police team and the authorities of the vehicles to take necessary legitimate action."
Besides, the ARI will monitor, guide and approve all activities of the project such as types of procurement for implementation of the project. The OCC will remain active all the time and deliver real-time information to the respective authorities to perform their duties.
The second phase of the project has plans to establish 90 driving schools -- 60 for light vehicles and 30 for both light and heavy vehicles to produce 30,000 drivers annually.
Driving Stimulator Lab, Data Collection Center and placement of modern equipment in the vehicles will also be set up under the second part of the project.
The ARI analysed accidents data for 17 years (1999-2015) before formulating the project.
According to the findings, over speeding was responsible for 37 per cent of deaths in road accidents, careless driving for 47 per cent deaths and the remaining for other reasons.
"Of the accidents, 20 per cent were head-on collisions 13 per cent involved the rear end of vehicles, overturn 9 per cent, sideswipe 6 per cent, hitting park vehicle 3 per cent."
Some 92 per cent road accidents occurred in straight section of roads while only 8 per cent took place in the curves of roads, according to the findings.
According to police FIR database, over 3,100 crashes, 2,700 fatalities and 2,400 injuries occurred annually on roads in Bangladesh.
Prof Hossain said the annual accidental loss would be equivalent to 2-3 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) worth Tk 400 billion.
He said the government wished to achieve the SDGs by reducing 50 per cent of the accidents by 2020. "If the government takes up the project, 50 per cent accidents will be reduced by 2020," he said.
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