Infrastructure

Improving safety standards on India’s roads

Macquarie Asset Management is supporting Indian toll road platform, Safeway Concessions, to improve safety outcomes across its network to world-class standards.

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Sector Infrastructure
Sub-sector Transport
Location India

Opportunity

In 2018, Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) acquired nine toll road assets from the National Highways Authority of India as part of the first major India toll roads privatisation program.1

Bringing these highway assets together, MAM established Safeway Concessions (Safeway), setting up management, governance systems and standards for operation. 

India has the second largest road network globally, where a rapidly expanding middle class is driving growth in personal mobility and road usage.2,3

The country also has the world’s highest number of road crash fatalities annually – underscoring the criticality of safety as a key focus in MAM’s investment approach.4


Approach

MAM has been supporting Safeway to enhance workplace, health and safety (WHS) standards across its 681-kilometres toll road network.

Leveraging MAM safety specialists and global best practices, Safeway developed a robust safety improvement plan, including shadow vehicles and truck mounted attenuators (TMA), which help enhance the safety of workers by serving as protective barriers in work zones.5

Safeway prioritised the adoption of tailored work zone designs for maintenance and impact protection measures for toll plazas, along with enhanced pedestrian safety measures such as pedestrian barriers and walkways, road lighting, crosswalks and signage.

For maintenance vehicles, in-vehicle monitoring systems with forward and driver facing dash cameras were introduced to enhance driver visibility and provide high-quality incident data to enable regular improvements.

Outcome

With MAM’s encouragement at the Board level, Safeway has been able to establish safety standards that aim to protect its more than 1,700 employees who help maintain a network that serves approximately 38 million commuters each year.6

As an early adopter of TMAs in India, Safeway has been able to protect road workers from vehicle-related incidents. The deployment of TMAs has also been instrumental in preventing more than 20 potential fatality events since 2021.7

The introduction of mechanisation and task re-design initiatives has mitigated over 61,000 critical risk exposures annually, predominantly by replacing pedestrian workers with mechanical solutions such as cleaning trucks or water tankers.8

Over 6,400 critical control verifications are performed every year, ensuring that the systems that are designed to keep people safe are in place and function effectively.

Collectively, these measures have meant there have been no serious injury or fatality events with roadworkers in over four years.9

1,700+

employees supporting nine toll roads

Zero

serious injury or fatality of roadworkers in four years11

We’re proud of MAM’s pioneering role in road safety, partnering with employees, multiple stakeholders and communities over the decade of its ownership of roads in India.”

Deep Gupta
Co-Head of Southeast Asia and India
Macquarie Asset Management

1. Infrastructure Investor, India awards Macquarie $1.5b toll road concession, 2 March 2018.
2. Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, Annual Report 2022-2023.
3. By vehicle sales volumes, The Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers.
4. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, ‘Delivering Road Safety in India’, 2020.
5. Ador, ‘When Safety Meets Innovation: A Case Study on Truck Mounted Attenuators at Icchapuram Tollway’, 1 November 2023.
6. As at 31 March 2024. Number of commuters based on total count of vehicles on road. 
7. As at 31 March 2024.
8. Exposure hours eliminated in a year through improvements in workzone set-up and retrieval, and increased use of mechanized vehicles and equipment.
9. As at 31 March 2024.
10. As at 31 March 2024. Number of commuters based on total count of vehicles on road.
11. As at 31 March 2024.