Accident analysis and road safety audit: a case study on NH-76

Abstract

Road accidents in India are on the rise as the country’s vehicle population grows. As a result, a considerable number of lives and assets have been lost. The formal process for determining causal factors responsible for road accidents in new or improvement of existing road projects without any major modification in the design is known as a road safety audit. This study examines the traffic safety situation on NH-76 from Udaipur to Chittorgarh in the state of Rajasthan, India, intending to identify causal factors responsible for road accidents so that the real damage resulting from road collisions can be reduced to some extent in the future. For this study, a 93.5-kilometer span was chosen and accident data was obtained from the enforcement department via recorded accident FIRs from 2017 to 2019. The accident data was studied to determine the reasons, taking into account yearly, hourly, time-wise, day-wise variation, accident nature-wise, and other factors. Black spots were also identified in the study area and recommendations based on analysis were made to prevent traffic accidents and make the route safer for users. The purpose of this study is to uncover flaws, improve design characteristics, and improve road credibility.