New Delhi, Sept. 22 -- India's highway transformation has become one of the most visible markers of its infrastructure ambitions. Expressways and access-controlled corridors have shortened journeys, improved freight movement and connected economic centres at speeds that would have been difficult to imagine on much of the country's older road network. The National Highways Authority of India's new guidelines for high-speed, access-controlled National Highways are therefore timely. The framework will apply to upcoming four- and six-lane greenfield and brownfield corridors and seeks to standardise planning and Detailed Project Reports at a time when the government envisages developing 50,000 km of access-controlled high-speed corridors under its Viksit Bharat 2047 roadmap. Among the provisions are restrictions on median openings and at-grade intersections, advance notification of entries and exits, lane configurations linked to projected traffic and boundary walls intended to prevent unauthorised access, encroachments and the entry of stray cattle. These may appear to be technical details, but they address a fundamental reality: a road designed for high speed cannot be managed like an ordinary highway. The faster vehicles travel, the smaller the margin for error becomes.
That recognition is important because India's highway success story exists alongside a road-safety crisis. The latest comprehensive official road-accident report, covering 2023, recorded 4,80,583 accidents and 1,72,890 deaths across the country. Straight roads alone accounted for 3,22,005 accidents and 1,14,447 deaths, a reminder that seemingly uncomplicated stretches are not necessarily safe when higher speeds reduce reaction time and magnify the consequences of mistakes. The problem is particularly relevant as India moves from conventional highways towards long, uninterrupted high-speed corridors. Such roads can reduce some traditional conflict points, but they create a different safety environment. A driver entering the wrong lane, braking abruptly for a missed exit, stopping on the carriageway or travelling far above the permitted speed can trigger a catastrophic collision. India has already seen the consequences of excessive speeds on access-controlled roads. The government acknowledged in 2023 that vehicles had been detected travelling at 150-160 kmph on the Bengaluru-Mysuru corridor, with high-speed overtaking and frequent lane changes contributing to accidents. Building roads capable of carrying faster traffic must therefore be accompanied by systems capable of managing that traffic safely.
Engineering is the first defence. Removing median cuts and surface-level intersections can eliminate dangerous crossing movements, while advance exit signs at five kilometres, two kilometres, one kilometre and 500 metres can discourage sudden lane changes. Physical access control is equally important in a country where high-speed roads frequently coexist with settlements, agricultural land and local traffic. But good design cannot end when construction ends. Lane markings fade, crash barriers are damaged, signs become obscured and unauthorised access points can emerge. Safety audits therefore have to become continuous operational exercises rather than compliance requirements completed before inauguration. The government already mandates third-party road-safety audits at different stages of National Highway projects and has been identifying and rectifying accident blackspots. The larger task is to make safety performance itself a measure of highway performance. Contractors and concessionaires should be assessed not only on pavement quality, toll collection and traffic flow, but also on whether hazards are identified and corrected quickly. A world-class highway should be judged as much by how safely people arrive as by how quickly they travel.
Engineering, however, cannot compensate indefinitely for poor driving behaviour and weak enforcement. High-speed corridors require stricter lane discipline, consistent speed enforcement and far greater respect for basic rules governing stopping, overtaking and entry. Technology can help bridge the enforcement gap. Automatic number-plate recognition, speed detection, intelligent cameras and video-based incident detection can identify violations without depending entirely on physical policing. The government is already deploying Advanced Traffic Management Systems on National Highways, including AI-based video incident detection and enforcement systems, surveillance cameras and automatic number-plate recognition. NHAI is also upgrading the 1033 highway helpline with real-time location tracking and technology intended to dispatch assistance more quickly. These systems should eventually work as an integrated safety network: detecting an accident, locating it immediately, warning approaching motorists and mobilising an ambulance, patrol vehicle or recovery team. Enforcement must also be predictable. Drivers are more likely to obey speed and lane rules when violations are consistently detected rather than when enforcement appears sporadically around toll plazas or known checkpoints.
The final piece is emergency response. Even the safest highway system cannot eliminate crashes entirely, and on high-speed corridors the difference between survival and death may depend on what happens in the first minutes after impact. Ambulance availability, trauma-care links, clearly identified emergency access points, rapid incident detection and trained responders must therefore be planned as essential highway infrastructure, not as services added later. India's highway programme has understandably celebrated kilometres constructed, travel time reduced and logistics efficiency improved. Its next stage requires an equally visible safety ambition. The new NHAI guidelines provide a useful foundation because they acknowledge that high-speed roads require their own design discipline. But standards on paper will matter only when design, maintenance, enforcement, driver behaviour and emergency care operate as parts of the same system. As India builds thousands of kilometres of faster corridors, the measure of progress cannot simply be how much sooner a traveller reaches the destination. It must also be how reliably that traveller reaches it safely.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.