In an earlier analysis we looked at the number of road crashes and fatalities in India with a focus on pedestrian fatalities. We found that while the number of road crashes and fatalities have risen steadily, the proportion of pedestrians making up the fatalities has more than doubled in the last decade.
In this analysis we look at how our major cities ranked in 2023 when it comes to road safety, with a focus on pedestrian safety.
Delhi and Bengaluru lead
Delhi and Bengaluru, the cities with the most number of private vehicles continue to lead when it comes to road crashes, with numbers either close to or exceeding 5000 crashes.
Worryingly, tier-2 cities like Jabalpur, Jaipur, Kochi, Bhopal and Indore continue to feature in the top 10 cities for road crashes. Even a town like Malappuram which doesn’t rank as a tier-2 city features in the list with a high number of crashes.
Despite their high population, cities from Uttar Pradesh don’t feature in the top 10 for road crashes. However, when it comes to the top 10 cities for road crash fatalities, three major cities from UP make the list. Delhi and Bengaluru continue to lead the list along with Jabalpur, Chennai and Jaipur maintaining their stay in the top 10.
Only five of the cities from the top 10 for road crashes feature in the corresponding list for road fatalities. This suggests that while road fatalities are hard to ignore and are recorded more diligently, non-fatal road crashes don’t make it into the record in the same way in all cities.
This can be understood by looking at the mortality rate of road crashes, which is measured as the percentage of road crashes that were fatal. Cities in UP – Kanpur, Lucknow, Agra and Prayagraj have a mortality rate of more than 40%, while in cities like Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi it is much lower.
It does not necessarily mean that more road crashes end up being fatal in cities in UP, but that non-fatal road crashes are not recorded in their Police Stations as much as in other cities. While road safety definitely needs to be improved in these cities, there is also an urgent need to improve record-keeping for road crashes. Recording as many road crashes as possible and where they happen can help intervene and fix spots with systemic issues which can help prevent potential fatal crashes.
Pedestrians thrown under the bus
When it comes to pedestrian fatalities Delhi and Bengaluru continue to rank at the top. The large metros of Ahmedabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad make it to the top 10 on this front. When it comes to lack of pedestrian safety our largest metros are unfortunately the same.
Ludhiana, Jaipur, Surat and Asansol are the other tier-2 cities that make the list. The absence of cities from UP in the top 10 for pedestrian fatalities makes one wonder if the fatalities are mostly of motorists or if there could be some under-counting or mis-counting.
Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai over the years
Historic data over the past seven years paints a distressing picture for Bengaluru and Delhi.
In Delhi, while the number of road crashes and fatalities was reducing from 2017 till 2019, since Covid the number has only been increasing and it has reached the pre-covid levels. This is also true of fatalities which have not come down under 1000 in all these years, even during the Covid lockdown year of 2020.
In Bengaluru’s case the increase post-Covid has been rapid, surging towards 5000 since 2021. The number of fatalities, while staying under 1000, has been steadily growing towards that milestone.
Chennai used to rank among the highest when it comes to road crashes and fatalities, with more than 7000 crashes and 1000 fatalities before Covid. In 2021, the city recorded close to a 1000 fatalities, and the number has halved since then.
In an earlier analysis we had noted that the number of road crash fatalities when considering the Chennai Metropolitan area including Chengalpattu and Thiruvallur districts has remained the same, and the decrease in fatalities in Chennai district since 2021 has been compensated by a corresponding increase in the numbers for the two neighbouring districts.
Across the country the proportion of pedestrians in road crash fatalities has been increasing. Large cities like Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi are no better. While 20% of the fatalities in road crashes were pedestrians at the national level, in Delhi more than 40% of those killed in road crashes have been pedestrians since 2020.
The proportion is more than 30% in both Chennai and Bengaluru and increasing steadily each year.
Conclusions
Indian cities see a lot of road crashes, and the data for 2023 shows that this year was no different. Bengaluru and Delhi have the highest number of private vehicles in India, and they also lead in the number of road crashes, road crash fatalities as well as pedestrian fatalities.
Worryingly, tier-2 cities like Bhopal, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Kanpur and Prayagraj and even small towns like Malappuram make the top 10 for either road crashes or fatalities. Data for cities in Uttar Pradesh suggests that there is a need for better record keeping.
Pedestrians get the short end of the stick across all cities. Our analysis for Mumbai earlier and the data for Bengaluru show the same. While there has been an explosive growth in vehicles, road infrastructure has been struggling to keep up with the change. Pedestrian infrastructure in the form of footpaths, skywalks and crossings has been neglected to the detriment of everyone.