New Delhi | As India prepares for the upcoming AI Impact Summit, a quiet revolution is unfolding across its 64-lakh-kilometre road network.
While global conversations often centre on AI’s role in automation and productivity, in India, the technology is finding its most profound application in a life-saving mission: curbing the country’s staggering rate of road accidents.
With 1,77,177 road fatalities recorded in 2024—averaging roughly 485 lives lost every day—the limitations of traditional enforcement and human monitoring have become starkly apparent.
The challenge is systemic: mixed traffic, varied road conditions, and unpredictable driving patterns make Indian roads some of the most complex in the world.
However, a new wave of vision-based AI is shifting the paradigm from forensic analysis—looking at what went wrong after a crash—to real-time intervention that prevents collisions before they happen.
This technological shift treats the chaos of Indian roads—unmarked lanes, stray animals, and dense traffic—not as a hurdle, but as rich training data.
By processing millions of miles of diverse driving scenarios, AI models are now achieving alert precision, proving that if a safety system can perform reliably in India, it is effectively battle-tested for any environment globally.
“AI cameras function as intelligent, AI-driven coaching systems that analyse driver behaviour in real time. They recognise patterns such as tailgating, lane drifting, harsh braking, distraction, and mobile phone usage.
“And, most importantly, they detect when these behaviours escalate into high‑risk situations. When that happens, then the system issues an immediate in-cab alert. The purpose isn’t to punish the driver; it is to intervene,” explains Teja Gudena, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Netradyne.
Unlike traditional dashcams that act as simple recording devices with onboard storage, these AI-driven cameras are vision-based systems built "at the edge."
By distinguishing between normal road variability and genuine risk, the system can detect subtle physiological signs—such as eyelid behaviour, blink frequency, and per cent eye closure—to identify drowsiness and head-movement cues that typically appear just before a microsleep occurs.
According to MoRTH’s Road Accidents in India 2023 report, overspeeding alone was linked to 63.7 per cent of accidents and 60.8 per cent of road deaths.
The impact of this "safety coach in the cab" is already visible in the data.
Hitachi Cash Management, one of the enterprises utilising Netradyne’s vision-based safety system, reported a 50 per cent reduction in accidents.
Furthermore, the technology led to a 74 per cent drop in drowsy driving instances and a 38 per cent reduction in distracted driving, according to data shared by Netradyne.
Beyond the hardware, a significant part of the success of this technology in the Indian market has been overcoming the "spying" stigma. The workflow extends beyond the immediate in-cab alert to a comprehensive "Intelligent Driver Management System" (IDMS).
Post-trip, the AI provides a structured view of driving patterns across different routes and times of day, allowing managers to distinguish between isolated incidents and recurring risks.
This data is used to power a "GreenZone" scoring system, which creates a transparent environment where safe driving is recognised and rewarded. By using contextual video evidence, the system also serves to exonerate drivers in road incidents where they are not at fault, shifting the narrative from a "camera in the vehicle" to a "safety coach in the cab."
While the technology is currently scaling across more than 3,000 fleets, its application is tailored to the specific needs of different commercial sectors. In goods transportation, the focus is on high-stakes environments like hazardous materials, long-haul logistics, and e-commerce.
Conversely, in the realm of people transportation, AI is being deployed by corporate employee transport providers and public transport operators, including buses. The ultimate goal is to serve as a comprehensive safety intelligence layer for all commercial mobility, whether moving cargo or passengers, providing a scalable intervention that human monitoring alone cannot achieve.
