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.
