Revamp of ten arterial roads to curb accidents

The Delhi government's transport department has begun implementing road design changes at 10 arterial road stretches, mostly in north Delhi, to curb fatal accidents based on data gathered between 2019 and 2021, officials said.

- Snehil Sinha

Seven of these stretches and intersections featured in a list of 18 crash spots or black spots collated in a report titled "Delhi Road Safety Report: Data to Action", prepared by the transport department in collaboration with Delhi Traffic Police with technical support by international organisations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins and International Injury Research Unit of IIT-Delhi.

The report was prepared in 2022 with data from 2019, 2020 and 2021. The findings were released by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in January, wherein the intersection redesign project was announced.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India accounts for 22% of the fatal crashes in the world each year. In 2021, the number of fatalities due to road accidents in Delhi totalled 1,239, an increase from 1,196 in the previous year, it said.

Officials said in addition to the seven stretches that appeared in the original list, three have been chosen from northeast, northwest and south Delhi.