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Abstract
Road safety is a multi – sectored and multi dimensional issue. Kerala is one of the leading states in high rate of road accidents and injuries. Road accidents are considered to be the third major cause of death in the state. The state has nearly 3% of the country’s population but it has recorded about 10% of the country’s road traffic accidents. The main problem existing is that the traffic is not homogeneous but mix mode type with a vast range of vehicles plying in it (i.e., bus, truck, car, rickshaw etc.). Growing business activities in major Central Business District (CBD) areas has attracted more population and bunched up without expansion. As a result, congestion is created. Every year the number of vehicles increases but the road length remains the same. Due to peculiar geographical condition, nature of human settlement and land use pattern, most of our roads remain narrow and congested. Thiruvananthapuram, also known as Trivandrum, is one of the major cities in Kerala State and derives its importance being the capital city of the State. The future prospects of Trivandrum are manifold. The city witnesses severe traffic congestion during major part of the day, resulting in low vehicle speed, air and noise pollution and high accident risk. In this regard, Kerala Government had implemented many road safety initiatives and city improvement plan in major part of the cities during 2013. This study attempts to evaluate, analyze the road safety initiatives up on the non-engineering and engineering aspect using the observation survey alone. This study gathered data like traffic volume, parking, pedestrian movement and accident data within the 1 km stretch at Thiruvananthapuram city (main CBD area). From the analysis it was observed that the number of accidents occurred in the said stretch has decreased by 1.2% when compared with the older data which indicates the effectiveness of the road safety initiatives implemented by the Kerala Government.