With a view to recognize the Drivers for their efforts in ensuring safety and preventing road accidents while driving Public transport buses, Association of State Road Transport Undertakings (ASRTU) celebrated the HEROES ON THE ROAD felicitation in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Secretary ,Ministry of Road Transport & Highways Alka Upadhyay gave away the Safety Awards to 42 drivers who were flown in along with their family members from all across the country for this event as a gesture of gratitude for their unblemished services. The top 17 drivers have all crossed recorded service of 30 years without an accident in their total service.
Currently, 80 State Road Transport Undertakings (SRTU) / SPVs under municipal Corporations are the members of ASRTU who are jointly operating approximately 1,50,000 buses and providing affordable and safer mobility to about 70 million passengers .ASRTU mainly deals with the promotion and improvement of Public Road Transport in the country. ASRTU serves as a forum to discuss the latest developments, identify key issues/challenges, and exchange information on the best practices of the State Road Transport Undertakings by conducting various meetings, conferences and seminars/workshops etc.
The Ministry, along with related organizations and stakeholders has formulated a multi-pronged strategy to address the issue of Road Safety based on Education, Engineering (both of Roads and Vehicles), Enforcement and Emergency care.With regard to SRTUs, the road accidents involve in SRTU buses is very less (0.09 accident rate) some of the SRTUs have maintained accident rate much less than the average of 0.09 (Haryana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu – Salem, Uttarakhand, Andaman & Nicobar and Delhi) in Urban Transport.
Few of the measures taken by SRTUs to reduce Road accidents are:
A. Driver Related
- Selection of educated and experienced driver in the recruitment stage itself
- Induction training and refresher training of the selected drivers
- Motivating the drivers by Awards and Rewards
B. Vehicle Related
- Maintenance of the bus as per the schedule and focus on safety related areas such as brakes, steering, headlights, tyres etc.
- Ergonomic design of driver seat
- Ensuring fitness of the vehicle at all the times
C. Operational Scheduling
i. Duty schedules and roasters with proper rest intervals to the drivers
ii. Crew restrooms with all amenities
D. Motivational Measures
i Ensuring refresher training programs to all the drivers at least once in an year.
ii Cash Awards and Certificates to the accident-free service drivers at a depot, region, zone and state level.
