Real time public display dashboards: Reframing road traffic accidents in India

Advocacy to implement road safety laws globally

International practice has shown that regular reporting, citizen participation, and transparent data can drive sustainable road safety reforms. The EU Road Safety Exchange (2020–2025) connects countries to share best practices towards the Vision Zero aim to eliminate fatalities by 2050.³ In Sweden, Vision Zero policy combines data-driven interventions and public display Dashboards for measuring progress.⁴ In Australia, coalitions among health agencies and media exist to enable contextual accident reporting rather than singular incidents.⁵

In India, civil society initiatives - the SaveLIFE Foundation and policy actions such as the Good Samaritan Law demonstrate the potential of evidence-based advocacy to trigger policy change.⁶ Much of India’s accident data is not standardised, and in some instances available only upon request, which limits awareness and compliance. A real-time Trauma Dashboard, built through a public–private partnership (PPP) model, may combine these streams of data and give an open window into avoidable deaths, translating advocacy into governable action.

Reliability of data input into a proposed Trauma Dashboard

The reliability of a Trauma Dashboard will be dependent on the quality and reliability of its input data ( Figure shows proposed outline). Trauma data is obtained from a variety of sources - emergency departments, police blotters, and insurance claims, each with differing formats, reporting standards, and timeliness. Without convergence, gaps and inconsistencies could dilute the system’s credibility. To avoid this, standardised reporting protocols, interfaces with electronic health records, and independent validation systems must be instituted.

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Figure.

Outline of proposed Dashboard.

Export to PPT

India’s own domestic experience with air-quality dashboards is instructive. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) employs calibrated sensors, standardised air quality index (AQI) methodology, and automated real-time feeds to minimise the scope for human judgment and allow cities to be comparable to each other (CPCB AQI Dashboard).⁷

India collects a plethora of data on road accidents from multiple agencies such as the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), State traffic police, and insurance companies. However, the information are not centralised and real-time; data are scattered among departments and are generally released after cumbersome application process or in annual reports.

This lack of accessible, aggregated data seriously impedes public awareness, timely analysis, and evidence-based policymaking. Developing a real-time, publicly visible Dashboard would mobilise this dormant data as an active instrument of accountability and prevention.

Global precedents in trauma data systems

Other nations provide examples of how real-time Trauma Dashboards can revolutionise tracking and policy response. UK Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN) provides a national trauma registry and performance Dashboard that enables hospital-level benchmarking of outcomes, influencing care quality and redesign of the trauma system.⁸ Similarly, in the US, National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) and National Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP) serve as real-time reference systems for the occurrence of trauma and improvement in care.⁹ India’s National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) dashboard shows how public, real-time, transparent registries can engage different stakeholders with digital governance.¹⁰

A similar model can be utilised for tracking road trauma, linking ambulances, hospitals, and police departments into one network for real-time reporting. Implications from such systems can be used in developing an Indian Road Trauma Dashboard with a focus on interoperability, measurement-based data collection, and real-time feedback loops.

Public - Private Partnership (PPP) model

The proposed Dashboard can adopt a PPP model in both innovation and sustainability.

Technology platform and software framework

To implement the suggested Trauma Dashboard, an open-source, modular software stack can be utilised. The aim is to have interoperability, minimal implementation cost, and rapid scalability across metropolitan cities and beyond as shown in Supplementary Table I.

Automated checks will be done through the (NIC-hosted MeghRaj Cloud infrastructure with Ministry of Road Transport and Highways - Integrated Road Accident Database (MoRTH-iRAD) and Indian Council of Medical Research - National Informatics Centre (ICMR-NIC) collaboration datasets. Data packets routed from State Dashboards could go through multi-layer checks like de-duplication, timestamp and geo-tag cross-verifications, and schema integrity with Talend Data Quality modules. Artificial-intelligence-based algorithms will detect outliers or inconsistencies by comparison with National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) crash reports, insurance claim database information, and hospital admission information through the National Health Stack application programming interface (API). Cryptographic checksums will provide integrity of transmission, and nodal officers could perform regular manual verification to reconcile state-level and national aggregates before releasing these publicly on the Trauma Dashboard.

Public interface and visibility

The proposed Trauma Dashboard must be designed as a multi-platform public information system, highly visible over digital, institutional, and physical interfaces in order to achieve maximum awareness and policy sensitivity. Supplementary Table II gives the proposed methods of public display of trauma data.

We propose that the Trauma Dashboard should be placed in the public domain through a national and State-level web portal, supported by mobile applications and embeddable media devices. Additional citizen involvement can also have live Dashboards displayed on electronic billboards at key junctions and transport hubs. This multi-channel launch will ensure that road safety information is not restricted to policymakers, but included as part of the public’s daily awareness, similar to air-quality or weather dashboards.

Overall, a Trauma Dashboard is not only a helpful technical tool as an agent of change; it converts scattered accident reports into system analysis that reveals patterns of risk and disparity. In the process, it makes them transparent to enable civil society and media to put pressure for enhanced enforcement of road safety laws and mobilise public opinion for reforms. We recommend that the establishment of a Trauma Dashboard must be followed by its governance - transparency of data collection, and display. Furthermore, the intent of such a Dashboard is prevention; aligning trends in the data with targeted safety measures such as improved road design, enforcement of helmet and seatbelt use and anti-drunk driving measures.

We believe that the display of road deaths, suicides, and accidents on the same page as weather reports and stock market indices to sensitise citizens that safety is measurable. Research will have to be carried out to assess the impact of the proposed Trauma Dashboard, initially in a geographically defined urban city, followed by a State and eventually India-wide. AI enabled technological advances may enhance our ability to collect, validate, and disseminate real time data.