Assessment of road accident vulnerability: case study of Bhopal

Abstract

The study aims at assessing the road accident vulnerability in Bhopal in terms of their location, time, month, and various road users. Global and Indian facts suggest that with increasing population, vehicular ownership, urbanization and with emerging economy which demand for better connections and rapid movement of goods and services, there is an alarming increase in number of road accidents and road accident fatalities all around the world especially in low and middle income countries. With the increase in number of life loss due to road accidents, nations have to suffer a huge burden of economic losses. In case India three percent of the GDP is lost every year due to road accidents. At an individual level many families lose their loved ones or the member of the family who was responsible for their daily bread. Many lose their job or get life time disabilities due to grievous injuries. In case of Bhopal also the scenario is quite similar with large number of traffic road accidents and road accident deaths. Bhopal which stands second in terms traffic road accidents among the major cities of Madhya Pradesh with 3459 accidents in 2014 was chosen for study with the objective to assess areas which are most vulnerable to accidents and study road safety in selected vulnerable areas, thereby suggest mitigation measures to reduce road accidents. Traffic road accident data of 2014 was collected from traffic control room of Bhopal to conduct study analysis. Individual road accidents from different police station where mapped and using point density mapping tool of ArcGIS vulnerable areas were indentified, out of which MP Nagar from city core with most number of accidents and Misrod from outskirts was chosen to examine road safety by conducting road safety Audit in the selected stretches of these two vulnerable areas. From the study it was identified that traffic congestions, human carelessness, lack of infrastructure (pedestrian facilities, sing ages, street lights etc.), are some of the major factors which are responsible for road accidents and to reduce accidents in these areas some traffic calming measures are being suggested.