Identification of Black Spots on National Highways -A Case Study

Abstract

World Health Organization in their global status report on road safety presented in 2009 revealed that more people die in road accidents in India than anywhere else in the world, including the most populous China. This also been seen that traffic fatalities increased by about 5% per year from 1980 to 2000 but for now the rate of traffic fatalities has jump up to 8% per year in recent years. The reasons in the increase in percent of fatalities are may be due to increase in number of vehicles in recent years and secondly due to absence of coordinated official policy to control the problem. In economic terms, the cost of the road crash injuries is estimated at roughly one percent of gross national product in low income countries, 1.5 percent in middle income countries and 2 percent in high income countries. The management of accident risk is both a short-term and a long-term strategy, which requires support of central and state authorities. The most effective way of managing accident risk is through the development of a ‘safety culture’. A safety culture is the beliefs and ideas shared by all members of an organisation about accidents and their risk of happening and proper measure which are to be taken to decrease in the number of accidents. The accident analysis and identification of black spots has been done for the corridor comprises the section of National Highway21 commencing from Km 73.200 Km (Kiratpur Sahib in the state of Punjab) to km. 186.500 (Nerchowk in the state of Himachal Pradesh). The traffic volume on this particular section is very high as this road connects with various important cities of the state