More than 150,000 traffic-related fatalities occur annually in India. Cooperation between Swedish and Indian companies and institutions is now being formed to greatly reduce these.
The lessons learned will be utilised for development needs in different parts of the world in order to strengthen traffic safety as widely as possible.
In 2018, Sweden and India signed an innovation agreement. Sweden-India Transport Innovation and Safety Partnership (SITIS) is an example of how innovation cooperation between the can create global values in the security area.
Leading Indian companies and institutes with expertise in safety have come together to form the SITIS as a long-term platform for innovation and a centre for excellence on traffic safety research.
The SITIS partnership will build deeper understanding of traffic safety in India, and provide insights into the core challenges facing many fast-growing economies with similar challenges and their potential solutions. This will provide a unique ability to inform and evaluate policy and technology priorities.
Martin Lundstedt, CEO of the Volvo Group, one of the initiators of SITIS, said: “We know that road safety is crucial to driving prosperity and development in the world, and it is a crucial part of our business model. But the biggest gain is that we can now entwine deeper into India’s ambition to reduce fatalities on road and thus positively touch a key aspect of progress in the lives of people in India – safer mobility.
“We can all use these learnings to support our safety efforts across other parts of the world, as well as Sweden. India’s strengths in the digital arena and getting leading companies and premier research and academic institutes of the both countries to work together – we have the combined potential to accelerate safety progress through new & innovative solutions.”
The WHO estimates that while there are more than 150,000 deaths per year on roads in India, road deaths have slowed in Sweden. At the same time there is great potential provided by the new technology paradigms: connectivity, electro-mobility, automation, digitisation and AI – where India stands to leap frog in implementing effective technology to improve traffic safety.
Road safety is critical in delivering the 2030 Global Goals for sustainable development (SDG) and enable an efficient transport system, and thus remove obstacles for societal growth and prosperity.
Strong action for road safety is essential to support the Indian government’s ambition to cut fatalities by half in the next 10 years.
Members of the SITIS platform include: Volvo Group, Autoliv, Ericsson, Manipal Hospitals, Altair, Saab and Tech Mahindra, India Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Technology, and Chalmers University of Technology.