Road traffic crashes take the lives of nearly 1.3 million people every year and injure 20-50 million more in the world. India along with China is listed among the countries with the highest number of deaths on roads.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), road traffic injuries are the sixth leading cause of death in India with a greater share of hospitalisation, deaths, disabilities and socioeconomic losses in the young and middle-aged population. India suffers from the highest number of deaths, around 1,05,000, annually due to poor infrastructure and dangerous driving habits.
In Odisha, 9,811 people were killed and 29,313 injured in 24,506 road accidents during the last two-and-a-half years. The Central and State Governments have been implementing measures to make roads safer. There is a need for the society at large to take cognizance of the issue and join hands to make road safety a social movement.
To give all the stakeholders an opportunity to take part in a concerted action, Road Safety Week is observed across the country every year in January. The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (Road Safety Cell) has declared January 11-17, 2014 as the 25th Road Safety Week. The week is an event that highlights the devastation of road death and injury and encourages everyone to take action to prevent this tragedy. It’s all about people working together to raise awareness about road safety, promote responsible road use and prevent the sufferings resulting from crashes and casualties. These events encourage everyone to get involved and involve thousands of schools, colleges, employers, community groups, authorities and emergency services taking action to campaign for safer streets.
More disturbingly, a large number of deaths in accidents are borne by “vulnerable road users” such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Undertaking road and public transport construction activities in urban environments requires the safe provision of temporary footpath diversions and relocation of pedestrian crossing facilities. Construction activities in proximity to existing footpaths and traffic create additional risks to pedestrians. Assessing these risks and providing acceptable solutions that mitigate risks is an important part of traffic management for major construction projects.
The use of traffic safety barriers (or temporary traffic barriers) to separate traffic from pedestrians and workers can be a very effective method for managing pedestrian safety risks. The major planning, design and policy elements that impact pedestrian safety include street design, street connectivity, site design, land use and access management.
One important concept to understand is design speeds. The design speed of a road is the maximum speed that a vehicle can safely travel under perfect conditions. It is based on the road classification, conditions of the road itself and conditions of the surrounding land. While the design speed is created for safety, it is important to remember that this speed is only safe under perfect conditions.
When deciding on the design speed for a road, many factors must be taken into account besides the condition of the road. If the road tends to have a high volume of traffic, the speed is adjusted to take that into account. When considering the design speed for a road, the classification of the road is taken into consideration. local roads are those travelled by the local traffic on a day-to-day basis and generally have a lower speed limit. Arterial roads have the fastest speed and are designed for drivers covering a long distance. Collector roads are designed to connect local roads with arterial roads and have a speed that falls somewhere in the middle. Keeping in view the type of functions expected of each class of the urban road system, the design speed given by the Indian Road Congress (IRC) is 80 km/hr for arterial road, 60 km/hr for sub-arterial road, 50 km/hr for collector street and 30 km/hr for local road.
Although a design speed may be higher on suburban arterial streets (compared to urban local or collector streets), it is still important to provide pedestrian accommodations on such roads since pedestrians in those situations should also be able to walk and cross streets safely.
The same basic planning principles that apply for pedestrians apply for cyclists too. Because cycling is suitable for travel over greater distances than walking, it is necessary to distinguish a flow and an access function. When rapid suburban expansion occurs without consideration of the impact on pedestrians and cyclists, the resulting road network can be difficult and expensive to retrofit to widespread access later. Pedestrian connections should generally be provided within roads; that is, as part of a full road connection. Where a road connection is not entirely necessary for traffic circulation, it will often still be required where a pedestrian connection is necessary. Pedestrian facilities should generally be an integral part of a road. Pedestrian access ways provide links where there is no road.
land-use planning factors affect pedestrian traffic risk. This includes population density and city structure. The frequency of pedestrian crashes in a given area is strongly influenced by the density of the resident population and the total population exposed to risk. land-use planning policies and strategies that encourage a greater mix of land-uses and shorter trip distances make walking more feasible and safer.
land-use planning and roadway design should accommodate the specific needs of pedestrians not only to improve their safety but also to increase pedestrian access to local services including shops, schools, hospitals, farms, neighbours, public transportation stops and social meetings. Worldwide, pedestrian needs are increasingly recognised in land-use, public space and transport planning, with an increasing number of countries making substantial investments in pedestrian safety in recent years. While some countries, such as China and India, are beginning to increase their efforts to address pedestrian safety, others such as the Netherlands and Denmark have already invested in pedestrian safety.
Pedestrianisation is the process of removing vehicular traffic from city streets or restricting vehicular access to streets for use by pedestrians. Pedestrianisation improves also contributes to reducing noise and air pollution and creates more liveable environments. Moreover, it has been established that promoting walking can improve the social or economic vitality of a city as well as the health of society.
Effective walking policies that encourage regular walking reduce health problems for a very meaningful percentage of the population, especially elderly people.
Pedestrian safety is a shared responsibility. All road users have a role to play better protecting pedestrians and making the world safe for walking, even pedestrians themselves. Yet, it is Governments and their partners that are best placed to draw attention to the specific needs of pedestrians, legislate and enforce laws and standards for their protection, and design built environments in such a way that prevents pedestrian deaths and injuries and encourages walking.
In a society that values choice and freedom, people will be able to walk safely, whether for fun and recreation, getting to work or school, shopping or other reasons. Pedestrian safety and mobility must be elevated to a top priority for the situation to improve substantially. The engineers, planners, and other public officials in State and local agencies can leave an important legacy of improved walking conditions and fewer pedestrian crashes and injuries for future generations.
(Dr Mayarani Praharaj works at the Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar)