IIT Roorkee organizes the 1st L.R. Kadiyali Memorial Lecture on Road Safety Management
Roorkee: Centre for Transportation Systems of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee organized the 1st Dr. L.R. Kadiyali Memorial Lecture on 12th November 2021. Distinguished Prof. P.K. Sikdar, Advisor, International Road Federation (India Chapter); President, ICT Pvt Ltd.; Former Director, Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI), New Delhi, delivered the lecture on ‘Road Safety Management – A National Priority.’
The Lecture was attended by Prof Manoranjan Parida, Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee; Prof Durga Toshniwal, Head – Centre for Transportation Systems (CTRANS); Prof B R Gurjar; Prof S N Rangnekar; Prof U K Roy; Prof S Sadhukhan, and other faculty members along with M.Tech and PhD students of IIT Roorkee and various personalities from academia.
The lecture included topics related to how India is having the dubious distinction in the world with the highest road fatalities in a year, which is nearly 11% of all road deaths in the world, Road safety management is the first and fundamental pillar of the global plan for improving road safety performance by systematic and planned approach, and the UN General Assembly has approved the Second Decade of Action to reduce the global road fatalities and serious injuries by 50% by 2030, aligning the target with sustainable development goals.
Speaking during the lecture, Prof. P. K. Sikdar said, “Those countries, which have been able to show positive results in road safety outcomes, have managed it by a structured and multi-sectoral action plan implemented under strict guidelines and a highly coordinated format. No independent and isolated action has ever produced sustainable results in road safety improvement.”
“Globally proven and accepted ‘safe system approach’ can provide a comprehensive and logical action for deriving maximum benefit. Of course, to have such a framework implemented in a coordinated way, the institutional management role must be derived from the management capacity by focusing actions on multiple fronts as well as on targeted results”, added Prof. Sikdar.
Speaking about India’s efforts to address this issue, Prof. Sikdar who is also an expert for research and R&D management for Road and Road Transport Sector including highway planning and management for more than four decades, said, “A road safety management framework has already been developed, which identifies effective ways and elements of management that are crucial for improving road safety performance in a country or region. Thus, safety is produced just like any other goods and services and a management system is required at three levels: the institutional management responsible to plan and design interventions, which in turn produce the desired results.”
Prof. M. Parida, Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee, expressed his gratitude towards Prof. P.K. Sikdar.“The ideas shared by Prof. Sikdar not only resonate with the belief behind Dr. L. R. Kadiyali Memorial Lecture Series but also give a concept for the future programs for Road Safety Management in India. It is time for the country to seriously focus on the adoption of advanced technologies and multidimensional approaches to mitigate road accidents, he added.