Road Accident Analysis: A Case Study of Patna City

As you would expect, one of India's poorest and densely populated states, Bihar's capital, Patna, is noisy, crowded, polluted, and typically chaotic. The roads in the city are congested and encroached by other activities. Bus services in particular have deteriorated, and their efficiency and quality of service have been declining thus inducing passengers to turn to personalized modes and IPTs. This results not only in restricting the traffic flow, but also putting the road users' life at a great risk. The total number of fatal accidents as well as related fatality in the city is increasing over the years. Persons killed per 100 accidents are alarmingly high, as high as 45 during the year 2000. Pedestrian deaths as a percentage of all road fatalities are also extremely high. During the recent years, they constitute more than 90% of all road fatalities. Also, the adult working age group (18 to 60 years) accounted for more than 80 percent of all casualties. New bypass road on national highway (NH - 38) is the most accidents prone location in the city where around 15% of all accidents occurred during the year 2000. We believe that individual road safety audit for this location should be carried out by a multi-disciplinary team of experts to suggest corrective measures.