Road transport ministry announces ‘MOVE’ to prevent accidents

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with IIT Madras and MapmyIndia for collaboration on driver and road safety technologies. The trio have also launched a navigation app called [mapmyindia.com/move]‘Move’, that may potential help in curbing road accidents.

Rohan Verma, CEO & Wholetime Director, MapmyIndia said, “Bringing the power of best-in-class maps, navigation and geospatial technologies to make driving safer for 130 crore Indians, helping reduce accidents, and improving the efficiency of India’s 6.3 million road kilometre network, is something we are excited and readily capable to do. Our app provides a fully indigenous, hyper local, world class mapping and navigation experience. We hope more Indians will download and use and benefit from this service.”  

The non-chargeable navigation app service will also be having voice and visual alerts about upcoming speed breakers, sharp curves and potholes. Furthermore, users and authorities can also report and broadcast accidents, unsafe areas, road and traffic issues on the map to help benefit other users. 

The development comes amidst concerns raised by the ministry on road accidents and resultant deaths and his vision to cut down the count by 50% by 2025.   

Earlier, Union Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari in a written reply informed the Parliament that India saw 366,138 road accidents in 2020, causing 131,714 deaths.