NOIDA: Almost four months after Noida Authority
assigned the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) the task of
conducting a safety audit of the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, the
report is scheduled to be submitted by May 15. Officials said, taking
into account the frequent accidents on the expressway many of which have
been fatal, the survey has focused on several infrastructural and
safety lapses.

The CRRI
report would also help in identifying black spots on the expressway and
suggest means to rectify the accident-prone areas to bring down the
accident rate on the 24km stretch. The audit report will try to find the
deficient safety measures in design implementation of the expressway.
“The audit report is being prepared not only because of the accidents
but to obtain an expert opinion on the safety design. No matter how good
a design is, there will be deficiencies and we want to rectify these,”
said Rajeev Yadav, chief project engineer, Noida Authority.

According to officials, besides giving a quality certification of the
expressway, CRRI will also provide corrective measures for each of the
detected flaws as well as additional suggestion wherever required. “Once
we receive the report from CRRI, changes to make the expressway safe
for commuters will be implemented,” Yadav said.

In the past
four months, faults relating to the curvatures, shoulder width, crash
barriers and signages have also been surveyed by CRRI. The agency also
gathered data from secondary sources and an analysis is on. The existing
design of the central verge, entry/exit points, safety and emergency
measures, foot overbridges, etc have also been on the institute’s
scanner.

“The number of vehicles using the expressway keeps
increasing every year and there is a need to make changes accordingly
and to identify and evaluate infrastructure-related problems. With
CRRI’s assistance, we will inspect and upgrade the expressway as well as
educate people on traffic discipline,” Yadav added.

Since its
inception in 2002, the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway has been the site
of hundreds of deaths. In the past six months alone, nearly 20 people
have lost their lives while about 50 have been left injured. Authority
officials have also proposed to implement an Intelligent Transport
System which aims to control incidents of over-speeding, fatal accidents
and traffic congestion.

Key features of the ITS would be a control room, emergency call box, message signboards, CCTV, speed cameras, VIDS camera and meteorological data system.