City Traffic Police and IIT Madras conduct training programme to traffic police officers 

City Traffic Police and IIT Madras conduct training programme to traffic police officers 

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT Madras) Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS) is conducting a training programme for the Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP) for conducting scientific investigations into road accidents.

The programme on ‘Training on Structured Crash Investigation using Root Cause Analysis Matrix (RCAM)’ is held from Wednesday to Saturday. The programme seeks to impart design thinking skills to the investigation officer (IO) to adopt a human factors or empathy-based approach in identifying the root causes of an accident. This comprehensive systems approach to scientific enforcement empowers them to communicate their hypothesis effectively.

Underlining the importance of such a programme, Additional Commissioner of Police Traffic R. Sudhakar said, “With a change in approach to our investigative methods, we hope to achieve a better closure rate, which in turn will help us in bringing out more meaningful interventions to prevent future accidents from occurring.”

Elaborating on this program, Prof. Venkatesh Balasubramanian, Head of CoERS, IIT Madras, said, “By applying design thinking principles in a co-creative environment, we hope to introduce the investigating officers to a more result-oriented approach to crash investigations. By following a structured analysis, data-driven interventions can be formulated to prevent repetition and overlap of activities. Often, the human element is forgotten when investigating a crash. Through this course, we are trying to initiate a mindset change where investigating officers will have more empathy.”

The programme aims to equip the IO of the traffic police with the practical skills required for on-field data collection, collation, and analysis in a structured format.