IIT-M, SNS Foundation to develop tech on road safety for bus drivers

CHENNAI: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS) on Thursday announced that it was partnering with SNS Foundation on capacity and capability improvement, research, and development on human behavioural aspects of road safety. There will be a focus on school bus drivers.

The key outcomes targeted from this collaboration include building a simulator-based curriculum and delivery for the training of trainers on road safety rules, driving etiquette, and behaviour for school and college buses and vans in and around Chennai who are in contact with children at an impressionable age and can help develop adherence to road rules.

It’d also nurture ideas on road safety and help develop them into products using the CoERS ecosystem by organising hackathons that can identify promising ideas and mature them to the prototype stage.

Prof Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Head-CoERS, IIT Madras, said, “The key components involved in having safe roads are the vehicle, infrastructure, and human interaction with the two. In this partnership, we aspire to train drivers who will be train kids during their transit on the road to school. We hope this intervention will result in not only the development of participants but also help put together an objective driver training manual for bus drivers, especially those driving children.”