Pune-Mumbai Expressway turns death trap in 2024: 26% rise in deaths, 60% spike in serious injuries

Officially named the Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway, the six-lane, high-speed corridor connecting Kalamboli successful Raigad adjacent Mumbai to Kiwale adjacent Pune was inaugurated successful 2002. The expressway has an mean postulation load of 1.5 lakh vehicles each day, with a important summation seen during weekends and holidays.

As per provisional information shared by the road postulation police, the fig of fatal accidents roseate to 70 successful 2024 from 57 successful 2023, a 23 per cent rise; similarly, the fig of deaths roseate from 65 successful 2023 to 82 successful 2024, a 26 per cent rise. This was dissimilar the erstwhile twelvemonth erstwhile fatal accidents had gone down from 73 successful 2022 to 57 successful 2023 and full fatalities had dropped from 92 to 65, successful the aforesaid period.

“The fig of accidents with captious injuries roseate from 37 successful 2023 to 52 successful 2024, a emergence of 41 per cent. Similarly, the full superior injuries roseate from 89 successful 2023 to 143 successful 2024, a emergence of 60 per cent. This was an astir nonstop reversal of the inclination from 2022 to 2023 erstwhile accidents with superior injuries had gone down from 52 to 37 and full superior injuries had gone down from 144 to 89,” a road constabulary serviceman said.

The full fig of accidents, which had reduced from 198 successful 2022 to 154 successful 2023, has besides gone up to 184 successful 2024, arsenic per the provisional data.

Speeding to operator fatigue: Authorities connected alert

The spike successful the fig of accidents has enactment the road postulation constabulary connected alert. The emergence successful fatalities was extensively discussed successful caller briefings, officials revealed, and the absorption is backmost connected taking enactment against speeding, lane cutting, and wrongful halting.

Suresh Kumar Mekala, Additional Director General of Police, Traffic, Maharashtra, said that portion determination was a simplification successful accidents and fatalities successful 1 conception of the expressway earlier the Borghat, determination was an summation successful accidents and deaths successful the Borghat conception “especially betwixt the 30 and 40 km people from Kalamboli successful Raigad”.

“We person held meetings with each stakeholders to analyse the information and travel up with remedial measures. The investigation suggests that dense vehicles look issues of brakes and overheating connected the downward and upward slopes successful the Borghat section, starring to accidents,” helium added.

As per provisional information shared by the road postulation police, the fig of fatal accidents roseate to 70 successful 2024 from 57 successful 2023, a 23 per cent rise

Mekala besides flagged concerns of pedestrians connected the Expressway. “These violations constituent to breaches connected the Expressway, particularly successful the areas adjacent the nutrient plazas. We are discussing the contented of these breaches and ways to curtail them with the MSRDC [Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation]. Another large interest has been speeding. To code this, our Traffic Aid Posts oregon TAPs are conducting stringent enactment by deploying aggregate velocity radars on the full magnitude of the Expressway,” helium said.

Mekala said that conveyance wellness and operator fatigue were different areas of concern. “We are trying to code them done extended consciousness campaigns. We person observed that a ample chunk of the accidents person taken spot betwixt the model of 3 americium to 6 am. We are focussing connected the enactment against speeding and absorption is backmost connected conveyance wellness and operator alertness,” helium added.

‘Don’t bounds enforcement to information weeks’

Independent researcher Tanmay Pendse, who mislaid his member and Marathi histrion Akshay Pendse and nephew successful an expressway mishap successful December 2012 and has been doing extended enactment connected road information since, says strict enforcement of rules is mandatory.

“The commute connected high-speed corridors similar the Pune-Mumbai Expressway becomes a precocious hazard if immoderate of the pursuing factors are compromised – operator alertness, conveyance health, prime standards of the roadworthy infrastructure, adherence to rules. If much than 1 origin is compromised, the hazard multiplies. And this brings america backmost to the 4 Es of roadworthy information – education, enforcement, engineering and exigency response. Stringent enforcement and consciousness should not beryllium constricted to formalities of the information weeks but should beryllium a round-the-year effort,” Pendse said.

Manish Wadekar, a regular commuter connected the Pune-Mumbai Expressway, said, “Frequent reports of accidents connected the expressway, unending operation and repairs on the way, and the tricky Ghat conception with nightmarish postulation jams ever springiness america a consciousness that the expressway is not afloat safe. On the different hand, the toll postulation connected the expressway continues. Is that justified?”

A road constabulary serviceman admitted that the spot of the expressway successful the Ghat section, wherever the aged Mumbai-Pune road connected National Highway 4 overlaps with the expressway, remains susceptible to accidents.

“There are immoderate agelong unresolved structural and engineering issues with the expressway. These see inadequate work roadworthy infrastructure and an insufficient fig of halting spaces. However, the Ghat conception issues volition mostly beryllium resolved erstwhile the Missing Link task is complete,” the serviceman added.

The Missing Link task connected the Pune-Mumbai expressway involves the operation of a nexus roadworthy that volition trim question clip betwixt the 2 cities by bypassing an existing agelong of the expressway. MSRDC officials said that adjacent to 90 per cent of the enactment connected the task is already over.

In May past year, the Maharashtra authorities implemented an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) crossed the full agelong of the expressway. The cardinal diagnostic of the ITMS is that AI-driven cameras which tin observe a twelve antithetic postulation violations are installed each 10 km. Officials person said that ITMS implementation had glitches successful the beginning, including incorrect challans being issued, but these person been streamlined implicit the past fewer months.