Technology has transformed the face of India. It has helped create a pool of talented engineers who help power some of the biggest and most successful global companies. MNCs have poured money into their India operations and built world class facilities across several cities. Unfortunately, one only has to step outside these shiny and well-manicured campuses onto congested and poorly maintained roads to come crashing back to reality.
The stark reality is that India has an extremely poor road safety record. The number of road accidents and fatalities continue to increase every year. According to an official report released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, 146,000 people died in road accidents in 2015, a 5% increase from the previous year. With 400 deaths a day (not counting injuries and disabilities), the issue of road safety needs urgent and drastic measures.
This is where technology could step in to help transform our roads. The data shows that more than 80% of accidents are due to driver error. This clearly shows that we can significantly improve India’s road safety statistics by investing in our drivers. Self-driving or autonomous cars have been making the news for the past few years. The concept is fascinating and the pilots have been impressive. Most emerging solutions are still in the testing stage and not really a solution to the immediate problem, since it is hardly practical to do away with drivers in India anytime soon! However, what is of immediate relevance is the technologies that go into the making of a self-driving car can be applied immediately to help humans drive more safely.
There are largely two aspects of ‘poor’ driving behavior that can lead to an accident. One is distracted driving where the driver is not paying proper attention to the environment thus resulting in unsafe driving. The other is aggressive driving where the driver has made a conscious decision to flout safety norms.
Driving Assist & Monitoring systems are designed to reduce both distracted and aggressive driving. These devices are sophisticated vision systems equipped with a 360 degree Quad HD camera mounted on the windshield of a vehicle. The visual data along with accelerometer and gyrometer data feeds into an AI driven platform, powered by a compact but powerful processor specifically designed to handle heavy duty parallel processing. Deep Learning technology, a specialized field in AI, enables the video feed to be processed using an algorithm that mimics a human brain processing visual images. In simple terms, the device is seeing everything the driver is seeing, is experiencing all the forces the driver is experiencing and in addition is also observing the driver. It processes all of this visual and sensory data using its powerful onboard Deep Learning Processors.
Consequently, in real-time, the system can detect multiple types of unsafe driving events – the driver not stopping or slowing at a traffic light, not obeying road signs, driving too close at high speed to the vehicle in front, not maintaining a safe distance to pedestrians, drifting into the opposite lane and so on.
In addition, the system can also detect whether the driver is drowsy or distracted (e.g: not looking at the road or using a cell phone while driving). On detecting an unsafe driving event or in situations where the driver is distracted or drowsy, the system alerts the driver to take evasive action. In parallel, it also records the video of the unsafe event and uploads it to the cloud where the data is further analyzed to create a driver score that accurately measures the driver’s driving performance.
All of this data provides insurance companies and commercial fleets valuable information that they can use for driver training, recognizing safe drivers and creating incentive programs to encourage and reward safe driving. Incentives are a powerful way to modulate human behavior and driving is no exception. An incentive structure built using an accurate and comprehensive driving score can positively influence the driver to adopt safe driving practices.
Fleets that invest in a Driving Assistance & Monitoring System can make a real difference in road safety today by making drivers accountable and responsible. Every driver engagement that focuses on road safety can provide a real difference in saving lives and businesses.
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