Microlevel Study of Accident Data from Jalandhar to Phagwara on NH-44

Background/Objectives: As road accidents is a major health problem but yet neglected in most of the countries especially in the developing countries like ours i.e. India. It is due to various causes Vehicular Characteristics, Human Behavior and many Environmental factors causing Road Traffic Accidents (RTA). Multiple agencies like Police department, Transport Department and health involved addressing road safety. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Modifiable and preventable factors can help in reducing road accidents up to some extent. Study is planned by using information from different sources like district hospitals, Traffic police, and other private hospitals in a given area (NH1). Findings: After collecting this data, the micro level study of black spots (where maximum accidents occur) are to be carried out and other defects, unevenness and degradation in road surface, lack of engineering in design of highway from which we can view the cause of accidents. Applications/Improvements: The area on which the study is to be done on is from Jalandhar to Ludhiana (NH1), it’s about 55 kilometer distance with high density traffic and greater no of road accidents. There is an essential need to create awareness and create road safety awareness among people. The Government alone cannot tackle road accident problems. Microlevel Study of Accident Data from Jalandhar to Phagwara on NH-44 Amit Kumar Yadav, Waseem Akram and Arjuman Muzaffar Rather Department of Civil Engineering, Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar-Delhi G.T. Road, National Highway 1, Phagwara – 144411, Punjab, India; amit.18834@lpu.co.in, waseem.19417@lpu.co.in, arjumand91@gmail.com


Introduction
The total quantity of vehicles in our country is shown in Table 1. This data describes that total no of vehicles changed from 37 million in 1997 to 73 million in 2004. It shows average increase of 11% of motorized two wheelers and cars and 7% for trucks and buses, however all of the vehicles remain in official records but only 60 to 70% of them ply on roads 1 .Traffic fatalities per million population has been taken as an indicator of the health burden of road traffic crashes on society at the city 4 , regional or national level ,at the individual level risk injury 2 per trip is a consequence and the no of trips in proportional to population ,therefore traffic fatalities per unit population can be taken as rough indicator of risk faced by individuals, the risk of being involved in fatal road traffic crash obviously been increasing for Indians over the past few years, while some of this increase can be attributed to increase in motor vehicle per capita in India 3 . However, increasing vehicle ownership need not result in increased fatality rates if adequate safety measures are implemented 5 .

Accident Situation in India
It is estimated that in the U.S.A, about 44000 persons are killed and 3 million injured every year. This figure is alarming and statics shown in Table 4. The number of accidents as per sex or gender shown in Figure 2 and accident as per age group shown in Figure 5. The accident situation is more serious in India because of the rapid growth of motor vehicles in the past few years and inadequacy of many of our roads and street to cope up with this traffic. The mixed traffic conditions prevailing on the roads in India make the matters much worse. 3

Methodology
The accident analysis can be done by accessing the data from Police Station/Enforcement Department with    view the above discussed Methods to access the accident data, the below mentioned conditions are elaboration for that.

Results and Discussions
Accident data analysis for the period 2009-2014 (5 years) from Jalandhar to Phagwara has been done in present study 5 , accident data analysis has been accessed from Phagwara to Jalandhar, the area comes under PS, Sadar, Phagwara and fatalities shown in Figure 1 and accident time frequency shown in Figure 3. So, the data analyzed is totally based on police records, with addition to these primary survey has been done on this stretch to analyze the road conditions, vehicle condition and driver conditions.

Conclusions
The graphs conclude that the reason of accidents on Phagwara to Jalandhar Stretch is decreasing /increasing after a year as shown in Figure 4. So, no predictions can be made for future as accidents are uneven, Chachoki, Chaheru, Bhullrai, Mehtam are the places where maximum accidents occur, and mostly the age group from 20-40 are the victims and two wheelers are most among all, the female groups are less is no as there are less female drivers in India, so our conclusion can be improvised access to roads, separate lanes for two wheelers, road side speed guns to check speed of vehicles and according enforce a law on them, if it is economical, we can introduce an ITS on this highway as the traffic flow is too high.

Acknowledgement
The author heartily acknowledges the concerning authorities for collection of data and accessing of pavement and vehicle condition, I am thankful to Mr. Amit Kumar Yadav for putting a tremendous effort on this research and giving me a full support for completing this research.