IIT Madras, Renault Nissan Technology collaborate to reduce road accident fatalities in Chennai

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras' Connected Intelligent Urban Transportation lab to develop technology and solutions to improve road safety in Chennai and neighbouring districts by collaboration with Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India (RNTBCI) through two projects.

According to a statement from IIT Madras, RNTBCI, as part of corporate social responsibility, has contributed to IIT Madras and signed an agreement with the institute. Mahesh Panchagnula, dean of alumni and corporate relations of IIT Madras and Debashis Neogi, managing director of RNTBCI signed the agreement for the initiative to reduce road accidents fatalities.

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As part of this initiative, the Centre For Innovation, a voluntary student body at IIT Madras will conduct a hackathon named ‘Hackcidents’ for one year to gather ideas on road safety and accident prevention. The best ideas will be implemented.

The first IIT Madras road safety project under this initiative aims to focus on reducing accidents involving public transit buses in Chennai as over 10 percent of the fatal accidents in Chennai, in 2019, involved a bus. "The IIT Madras project proposes the use of state-of-the-art sensors and data collection techniques for better understanding the root causes leading to bus accidents and propose innovative ways to significantly reduce them," said the statement. The second project aims to use low-cost innovative technology to prevent accidents in Chennai, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu.

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“This initiative will surely reap benefits in terms of road safety and other technological interventions for the transportation sector at large. This project will lead to generate data which will help to enhance road safety. The findings from this project will pave way for new technologies that will further enhance entrepreneurship ideas,” said V Kamakoti, director of IIT Madras.