IIT Madras, SNS Foundation collaborate for road safety

The aim is to train more than 2,000 school bus drivers using simulators, and apps and to identify and nurture disruptive India-specific ideas for advanced driver assist systems to improve road safety. 

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS), is collaborating with SNS Foundation on capacity and capability improvement, research and development on human behavioural aspects of road safety. There will be a focus on school bus drivers. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) towards this collaboration was signed on March 1, 2023, between CoERS, IIT Madras, and SNS Foundation aim to train nearly 2,000 drivers in the near future. 

Key outcomes from IITM, SNS Foundation collaboration 

• Build a simulator-based curriculum and delivery for training of trainers on road safety rules, driving etiquette and behaviour for school and college buses and vans in and around Chennai who are in contact with children at an impressionable age and can help develop adherence to road rules. 
• Nurture ideas in the field of road safety help mature them into products using the CoERS ecosystem by organising hackathons that can identify promising ideas and mature them to the prototype stage. 

Prof Manu Santhanam, Dean (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research), IIT Madras, said, “Recently, there is a lot of coverage in the news media about road accidents, which happen despite good roads. Not just in Tamil Nadu but across India, there are many accidents and fatalities that are avoidable. A lot has to be done with respect to driver behaviour and enhancing vehicular safety.” 

He said, “We need to increase the awareness among people about how they utilise the road resources provided. There are different interventions being done at different levels, including policy work. I'm hopeful that the research being done by IIT Madras under this agreement will look into these aspects of driver behaviour and help train people to understand what it takes to have a safe driving approach, for ultimately, we need to work on safety from various different approaches. This presents an opportunity for the Centre of Excellence for Road Safety to bring out all the challenges towards the goal of having zero accidents.” 

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