The lack of road safety in India is increasingly becoming a matter of major concern. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, India recorded around 4.3 lakh road accidents in 2019, which took the lives of 1.5 lakh people.
Poor road infrastructure, encroachment, and increasing number of vehicles have contributed to the increasing number of road hazards in the country. The solution seems clear: real-time road monitoring and information collation about road infrastructure.
New Delhi-based deep tech startup NAYAN India Science and Technologies, founded in 2018 by Jayant Ratti, has taken up the onus by developing a road safety and traffic monitoring solution that uses a camera, computer vision and artificial intelligence. Jayant was later joined by Abhisekh Bose and Anuj Middha as co-founders in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Jayant, Founder and Managing Director, explains, “NAYAN has developed a crowdsourcing application that needs to be downloaded by drivers on their mobile phone, which can then be kept on the vehicle’s dashboard.
“The application will constantly monitor roads, infrastructure, traffic violation, and driver behaviour while the AI algorithms will analyse the video feed and alert in case of violation or dangers on the road.”
Jayant, who did his engineering from Delhi University and completed his PhD in robotics and AI from Georgia Institute of Technology, had launched VAaiDo Inc in 2015 to provide robotic and drone-based solutions in California. He returned to India and exited the company in 2019 after launching NAYAN with an initial investment of Rs 3.5 crore.
Illustration: YS Design
Road monitoring and safety
NAYAN leverages AI and computer vision for informatics and video analytics for monitoring roadways, highways etc for infrastructure hazards, traffic violations etc. The B2B SaaS startup works with road transport authorities, private aggregators, public transportation fleets etc to enable vehicle drivers to use the application while driving.
Drivers need to install the application, codenamed E3, and place the mobile on the dashboard to allow the camera to record feeds from the roads. These feeds are sent to authorities enabling better monitoring.
“Three big problems in India are yet to be solved - massive explosion of population, unregulated roadways and transportation, and lack of infrastructure management. NAYAN’s business model was born to marry the problems and find a solution. The startup is focused on using India’s main asset - its huge population - to solve road monitoring and traffic issues,” Jayant says.
The application will also monitor driver behaviour, hostage situations, or car thieving. It can also be used by aggregators such as Ola, Uber, Zomato, Swiggy etc for monitoring their drivers and their performance.
NAYAN won the smart mobility and transportation category at RAISE 2020, the virtual global AI summit organised by the Ministry of Electronics and IT earlier this month.
The startup leverages AI and computer vision for informatics and video analytics for monitoring roadways, highways etc for infrastructure hazards, traffic violations etc. [Image Credit: NAYAN]
Business and more
Speaking about the business model, Jayant says NAYAN is a SaaS startup and charges the partner institution for the video analytics data. He adds that the startup is looking to partner with fleet aggregators such as Ola and Uber and government institutions such as MeitY, NIC, NITI Aayog, Atal Innovation Mission, NHAI etc for deployment of the application.
The pricing model will depend on the kind of data or video analytics being sought by partner organisations.
The founder says NAYAN’s business model allows the drivers to earn money by capturing feeds that need to be acted upon. “For example, a driver’s app records a video feed that shows a major pothole on a national highway. These feed will be sold to the authorities and a percent of the income will go to the driver. This will also ensure economic support for them,” he adds.
Jayant explains that the startup is looking to support lower income groups by giving them access to the application so people, especially women, can report road-related hazards using the application and earn cash prizes.
The SaaS startup has raised seed funding from a clutch of investors, but the founder declines to disclose further details. NAYAN also qualified for the third edition of Google Launchpad Accelerator Programme last year. The startup has 100 team members working as of now.
Bengaluru-based RoadMetrics is also involved in a similar segment. The startup’s detection and monitoring system uses AI to detect cracks, potholes and damages on roads via its mobile application. It provides detailed data on the road using image processing and smartphone sensors.
Speaking about future plans, Jayant says, “We are in our beta testing phase and around 2,000 drivers are using the product. We have completely rolled out in Dubai and are waiting for partnerships in India for a complete rollout. We are expecting to completely rollout here by January 2021.”
Edited by Teja Lele Desai
Link : https://yourstory.com/2020/10/raise-2020-deep-tech-startup-ai-traffic-monitoring-nayan-analytics
Author :- Shreya Ganguly ( )
October 20, 2020 at 05:45AM
YourStory