Research Proposal: Road Transport Management in India - Issues

This research proposal focuses on road transport management in India, exploring the critical issues and objectives. The executive summary highlights the importance of road transport as a vital mode of transportation in India, providing infrastructural support to both agricultural and industrial sectors. The report delves into the background of the research, emphasizing the vast road network and its significance in passenger and freight traffic. The research objectives include exploring the functions and reliability of transport management, analyzing road accident severity, and assessing the economic role of road transport. A literature review examines existing research on road infrastructure, accident rates, and government initiatives. The methodology section outlines the research methods, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, descriptive research design, and inductive approaches. Data collection methods involve primary and secondary sources, such as surveys and literature review. Ethical considerations are also addressed to ensure data collection is conducted fairly and without biases. The proposal aims to identify the challenges and propose potential improvements in road transport management in India.

Running head: Transport Management 1
Research Proposal
Transport management (ROAD) in India.

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Executive summary
The main aim of this paper is to emphasize the road transport in India. Road transport is the
second vital mode of transport in India that provides the facilities to the people of every corner
which the railway transport even could not give. It provides the basic facilities of infrastructural
to not only agricultural but also industrial sector of the country. The report has entailed the issues
related to the road transport in which it has been found that the national transport development
Policy Committee (nTdPC) was comprised through the Government of India in 2010 in order to
develop a long-term transport policy.

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Contents
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................2
Background of the research.........................................................................................................................4
Research objectives.....................................................................................................................................4
Literature review.........................................................................................................................................5
Source of information..................................................................................................................................7
References.................................................................................................................................................10

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Background of the research
The road network in India has the second largest network that across the world at 5.4 million km.
The importance of the road network is great in India as more than 60% of all goods in India and
85% of total passenger traffic. Road transportation has steadily amplified over the years with the
development of connectivity between cities in India. It has been analyzed that Indian roads take
around 90% of the passenger traffic of the country and around 65% of its freight. It has been
found that the road traffic accident is increased in India which is a great issue for the country
(Pont, Ziviani, Wadley, Bennett and Abbott, 2009). It has been estimated that each year around 1
million people are killed and more than 40 million people injured on roads around the world. It
has been analyzed that progress is not going on in India where investment in protecting and
decreasing the major loss of health from road traffic injury is not equal with its high socio-
economic cost. It has been found with the help of the ESCAP secretariat that around 700,000
people were killed in road accidents. The main aim of this research proposal is to identify the
issue which has happened due to road transport whether it is road accident or improper policies
of handling infrastructure.
Research objectives
The main objective of this research is to identify the reason behind conducting this research. The
research objective for this research proposal is defined below:
 To explore the functions and the reliability of the transport management in India.
 To analyze the severity rate of accidents through road transport in India.
 To find out the role of the road transport in the economy of India.

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Literature review
According to Shrivastava, Neeta, and Geeta, (2013), Indian roads are divided into four parts such
as national highways, state highways, district roads and village roads. The road network in India
has comprised 79,100 km of National Highways. Along with that around 1,68,000 km covers
with state highways and 4,70,000 km of Major district roads. In the context of reading accidents
it has been found that there has been a frightening amplifies in accidental deaths on roads of
India over the years (Sharma, 2008). The fatalities of road accident have amplified more than 9
times, from 14,500 in 1970 to 137,000 in 2013. It has been analyzed that in comparison of
accident rate in 2003, fatalities and injuries in 2013 are increased by around 85,000. It has been
evaluated that the rate of fatalities has amplified by 5% per year from 2003 to 2013; on the other
hand, the rate of the population of the country has amplified with the rate of 1.4% per year
(NTDPC. 2018). As a result, road accidents, as well as fatality risk, has developed from 8% in
2003 to 11% in 2013. India is the developing country that is facing a high rate of fatality risk in
comparison to another developing country. The risk of fatality in India is more in comparison of
US, UK, and Sweden.
However, India is facing numerous issues regarding transport management in road transport but
the government of India has become aware towards this issue and commences to take initiative
in order to bring change in the road transport management (Singh, et. al., 2008). Furthermore, it
has been analyzed that the maintaining and construction of roads can develop wide employment
opportunities as it is double like labor intensive as housing. The roads of India are carried 85% of
the passengers and 70% of the freight traffic in the country (Gopalakrishnan, 2012). India’s
government has five years plans in which a good amount of investment was allocated for the
purpose of development of roads. In the starting of the first three years of the plan, India was

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spent around 1,104 crores on the development of the roads (Hazra and Goel, 2009). The fourth,
Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Plan had enough fund in which around Rs 862 crore, Rs 1,348 crore, Rs
3,439 crore and Rs 5,200 crore respectively spent for the purpose of bringing development in the
country. the role of the transport management is huge in India as they contribute to road
construction which is a capital intensive project. A contribution modernism in recent years was
the formation of a chief new foundation of backing for national, state and rural roads: the Central
Road Fund (CRF) formed under the Central Road Fund Act, 2000. It was considered as the
major milestone in attaining user charges to fund road construction (Sharholy, Ahmad,
Mahmood and Trivedi, 2008).
It is required for the transport management of India to take appropriate action in order to bring
improvement in India. The issue of road accidents in India is motivated because of the mixed
nature of road traffic on its roads in which scooters, motor-cycle, taxis, cars, trucks, vans,
bicycles, mopeds, and buses included that sharing the same road space (Yeung, Wearing and
Hills, 2008). On the other hand, it can be said that the same road network is utilized by various
categories of motorized and non-motorized vehicles. It is required for the transport management
of India to decrease the exposure to risk for not only separating express moving vehicles along
with implement speed limit on fast-moving vehicles (Gururaj, 2008).

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Source of information
The research methodology is the major part of the research proposal as it helps the researcher to
gather the information related to the topic in an efficient manner. The use of various methods is
considered while making the research proposal which is defined below:
Research method
There is number of methods which can be taken to implement the research but the major focus of
this research is on collecting the information by considering the qualitative and quantitative
research. The feature of both types of research is different from each other as qualitative research
helps in gathering the information in the quality way while quantitative method helps to provide
the information regarding the subject in a quantitative manner.
Research design
There are three kinds of design of the research which help the researcher to gather the
information related to the topic in an efficient manner. These are descriptive, exploratory and
casual research design. This assignment has considered the descriptive research design because it
depicts the participants in an accurate term.
Research approaches
Inductive and deductive are two kinds of research approach that helps researcher to justify the
show the data in more representative manner. Inductive approach is considered for this research
proposal because it helps the researcher to attain subjective knowledge on the issue of the
research. It would be helpful for the researcher to increase the reliability and validity of the
results of the research.

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Data collection
The role of the data collection in the research proposal is huge as it helps in resolving the issues
of the research in a significant manner. There are two kinds of approaches such as primary and
secondary approaches in which both approaches are considered while collecting the information
regarding the data. Primary data is being collected with the help of the survey and secondary data
is being gathered by taking help of the journal articles, books, internet sources, newspaper and
magazines.
Research strategy
The research strategy is one of the major aspects of the research that facilitates the research to
explore the results of the research in a systematic manner. The survey is an effective research
strategy that is used in this paper to collect the information about the road transport in India. It
facilitates to save time and money of the researcher to gather the information which will increase
the reliability of the research among key stakeholders.
Target market
It is required for the researcher to keep the focus on the target market for the purpose of
gathering information in more relevant manner. The combination of primary and secondary
sources is being chosen to set the target market in which the survey through questionnaire and
interview has been taken in use in order to gather the data. On the other hand, journal articles,
internet sources, and books are considered in the reference to secondary sources.

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Ethical consideration
Ethical consideration depicts the correct and incorrect format or researching method and says
that the collected data should be gathered in fair manner without any biases. This research is
being made after considering the fair manner of collecting the data in which no one is hampered
during collection of the data.

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References
Gopalakrishnan, S., 2012. A public health perspective of road traffic accidents. Journal of family
medicine and primary care, 1(2), p.144.
Gururaj, G., 2008. Road traffic deaths, injuries and disabilities in India: current
scenario. National Medical Journal of India, 21(1), p.14.
Hazra, T. and Goel, S., 2009. Solid waste management in Kolkata, India: Practices and
challenges. Waste management, 29(1), pp.470-478.
Kumar, K.N. and Goel, S., 2009. Characterization of municipal solid waste (MSW) and a
proposed management plan for Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Resources, Conservation and
Recycling, 53(3), pp.166-174.
NTDPC. 2018. India transport report moving india to 2032. Available [online]
http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/NTDPC_Vol_01.pdf. Accessed on 14 August
2018.
Pont, K., Ziviani, J., Wadley, D., Bennett, S. and Abbott, R., 2009. Environmental correlates of
children's active transportation: a systematic literature review. Health & place, 15(3), pp.849-
862.
Sharholy, M., Ahmad, K., Mahmood, G. and Trivedi, R.C., 2008. Municipal solid waste
management in Indian cities–A review. Waste management, 28(2), pp.459-467.
Sharma, B.R., 2008. Road traffic injuries: a major global public health crisis. Public
health, 122(12), pp.1399-1406.

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Shrivastava, R.K., Neeta, S. and Geeta, G., 2013. Air pollution due to road transportation in
India: A review on assessment and reduction strategies. Review Paper (NS-2), Journal of
Environmental Research and Development, 8(1).
Singh, A., Gangopadhyay, S., Nanda, P.K., Bhattacharya, S., Sharma, C. and Bhan, C., 2008.
Trends of greenhouse gas emissions from the road transport sector in India. Science of the total
environment, 390(1), pp.124-131.
Yeung, J., Wearing, S. and Hills, A.P., 2008. Child transport practices and perceived barriers in
active commuting to school. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 42(6),
pp.895-900.