The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has announced the launch of a pilot project across two national highway corridors to provide real-time safety alerts related to stray cattle, with the objective of reducing accidents caused by sudden animal movement on highways.
In a statement, NHAI said the pilot is being rolled out on the Jaipur-Agra and Jaipur-Rewari highway corridors. As part of the initiative, Reliance Jio has upgraded its platform to support nationwide delivery of real-time stray cattle safety alerts.
Last month, NHAI signed a memorandum of understanding with Reliance Jio to deploy a telecom-based safety alert system across the national highway network.
The initiative is aimed at curbing accidents triggered by sudden cattle movement, especially during foggy conditions and periods of low visibility. It will use telecom technologies to issue timely and location-specific advisories, improving driver awareness and overall highway safety. Alerts will be generated using mapped cattle-prone zones identified through historical accident data and field-level inputs, and disseminated via the enhanced telecom infrastructure.
Based on the performance and effectiveness of the pilot, NHAI said it will assess the feasibility of extending the initiative to other cattle-prone highway stretches, as part of its broader efforts to improve road safety and enhance user experience on national highways across the country.