Forget self-driving cars: Think of how else technology could ride to the rescue of urban India’s streets

A straw poll might show there exists a field of technology in which we Indians actually find it hard to be optimistic: self-driving vehicles. Satellite-guided traffic is a tech vision that’s unlikely to survive contact with our urban streets, unless AI can evolve to outsmart, say, a ‘squid’ motorist (in biker parlance) and learn the art of a real-world dodge.But optimism or any lack thereof has no bearing on the need for tech solutions to upgrade how vehicles move. For one thing, the status quo is costly.

Among middle-income economies, the country’s road fatality data is off the charts. Safety is an urgency. For another, making the most of foundational tech enablers is good policy.

One never knows what benefits well-linked streets can yield. This is why airwave spectrum allocation for ‘vehicle-to-everything’ or V2X technology, as the government is reported to have initiated, may well hold the promise of better traffic ahead. Early test results from Europe and China point to better road safety, traffic flows and emissions.‘Smart cars’ are already on the streets, linked with the internet for services like active map guidance, even as car sensors aim to fend off collisions.

It is public infrastructure that’s had to keep up. Ever since the ministry of road transport and highways set up a taskforce for ‘intelligent transport systems’ in 2024, it was clear that telecom would have to play a key role. India’s envisioned network for road traffic, for which spectrum has been earmarked and allotment rules may shortly be framed, would not just link vehicles with one another, but also feed them with live data from a web of roadside units.