• The total socio-economic cost due to road traffic accidents in India’s is $15.71–38.81 bn, which is estimated to be 0.55–1.35 percent of the nation’s GDP
• Nearly 781,668 vehicles were involved in road accident in 2019 according to RASSI Weighted data, which amounted to $1.81 bn in vehicle damages.
• First of its kind study to utilize suitable weighting factors from the RASSI database to offer a holistic view on a national scale

Bengaluru – With India’s economy forecasted to thrive in the coming years, it is pivotal for its road transport requirement to align with new policies and international supply chain categorization. However, the meagre availability of factual data, regarding socio-economic loss due to road accidents is hindering the path to ideation and implementation of new policies. Set against this backdrop, Bosch India has unveiled a unique study that identifies and analyses the socio-economic loss due to road traffic accidents in India.

For this study, the Accident Research team from Bosch India’s Advanced Autonomous Safety Systems and Corporate Research department studied and analyzed global road accident data over the last two decades to obtains results which can be effectively used to identify new products, business strategies, and road safety policies. This data will serve as a reference for policy makers to derive cost-benefit estimates for economic loss incurred by the respective stakeholders through the Human Capital (HC) method, Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) method and iRAP’s Rule of Thumb (RoT) method. This study is the first of its kind to utilize suitable weighting factors from the Road Accident Sampling System of India (RASSI) database to offer a holistic view on the national scale.

Some of the key findings of the research are as follows:

• The total socio-economic cost due to road traffic accidents in India’s is $15.71–38.81 bn, which is estimated to be 0.55–1.35 percent of the nation’s GDP

• Nearly 781,668 vehicles were involved in road accident in 2019 according to RASSI Weighted data, amounting to $0.57–1.81 bn in damages

• The damage costs include $356.2 mn for commercial vehicles, $69.8 mn for cars, $18.7 mn for two wheelers, and $39.6 mn for buses

• The total medical cost of the road traffic accidents victims in 2019 was close to $0.82–1.92 bn

• In 2019, the total productivity loss due to male fatalities was $10.9 bn and female fatalities was $1.44 bn. (considering avg. Net National income per capita for male and female employees)

• Total productivity loss in the year 2019 owing to serious injuries accounted for $123 mn while minor injuries accounted for $14 mn

The report provides OEMs, fleet operators and transport authorities with an accurate view of accident situations and can be leveraged to tailor technological innovations, countermeasures, and policies to make Indian roads safer. Any stakeholder can support road safety by bridging the data gap and building on the framework provided here, hence bring further road reforms. The methodology and results of this study can contribute in derving a cost befit analysis of various road safety technologies and thus help enforce them towards making Indian roads safer for all it’s users.

Speaking at the report launch, Girikumar Kumaresh, Senior Program Manager, Head Accidnet Research India, Advanced Autonomous Safety Systems at Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions said, “Road traffic accident casualties bring about a great deal of human suffering in terms of social, medical and economic costs, and it is crucial we mitigate them. The absence of data regarding the loss due to road accidents was the motivating factor for us to study and analyze the socio-economic impact of road accidents in India. This research is a testament to two years of hard work combining studies from the World Bank and World Economic Forum, and over 50 international journals underpinned by Bosch’s innovative method to estimate socio-economic loss due to road traffic accidents in India.”