SDG oriented monitoring for road safety and air pollution for Class I cities
Student name: Mr Samradh Singh Chauhan
Guide: Dr Deepty Jain
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Geetam Tiwari
Abstract: The world is no longer safe to drive and now even to breathe, as road accident crashes and air pollution come under the top reasons of deaths globally. The severity of the problem lies majorly in the developing countries and regions with an overspill of unmanageable population such as India. The UN has always been proactive in guiding nations and regions to develop themselves in a manner that is safe and sustainable. One such approach lies within the SDGs which were introduced by UN in 2015, in order to shift the paradigm towards sustainable development which can be achieved through a comprehensive list of 17 goals and 169 targets.
Yes – the megacities are the ones where most urban issues rests and thus are given more attention, but there are other small sized cities urbanizing too at a significant pace and there is no check on their developmental problems. Thus this study was taken up focussing on road safety and air pollution related issues in two small sized cities (Class I cities based on population) – Patiala and Bulandshahr – of India. These were measured through a proper indicator based framework of the SDGs, by collecting and analysing data from local and state level authorities for the city. This was the most challenging part due complete lack or inadequate data available for these cities. Further based on the data collected, some relevant analyses were performed further.
After the analysis of the data it was found that death rate due to accidents were happening as close to the national average in both cities, despite being such small in size. And the particulate air pollution was almost twice the prescribed limits throughout the year for 2009-16 period for Patiala, and 4-6 folds high than standards for almost a year in Bulandshahr. Moreover based on the FIR data, road safety audit were performed for Patiala and all category of roads – arterial, collector and local scored poorly highlighting safety issues for pedestrians as well as motorists. Thus a check on such issues is necessary for such cities and they themselves are capable of doing this by having a repository of their own city’s data and managing it in order to develop or make interventions in the city’s infrastructure. This can be done in same manner as shown in this study, and are done through methods and practices which will require basic skill sets for the local authorities.
