Insight
Published on Nov. 4, 2025
Road Safety Audits are an essential part of building and maintaining safer highways in India. As per IRC 35, road safety audits help evaluate the safety performance of existing roads and identify potential risks before accidents occur. These audits ensure that every road feature — from traffic signs to road markings — meets the standards prescribed in IRC 67, which governs the design, installation, and maintenance of traffic signs in India.
To make this process more efficient, transparent, and data-driven, Hanu AI has developed an advanced digital platform called Road Athena. The Road Athena platform uses artificial intelligence, computer vision, and GIS technology to automatically capture and analyze road features directly from field survey data. It compares each element — such as traffic signs, lane markings, guardrails, and road furniture — with the requirements defined in IRC 67 and IRC 35.
One of the major strengths of Road Athena is its ability to perform regular data recording. Every survey conducted through Road Athena captures a complete visual and spatial record of the road stretch, giving a true and updated picture of the site conditions. This digital documentation helps auditors and engineers verify ground realities accurately — something that is difficult to achieve through manual inspection alone.
Another key advantage of Road Athena is its before-and-after comparison feature. When improvement works or maintenance activities are carried out, the new data can be uploaded to Road Athena, which then compares it with the previous survey. This allows NHAI and auditors to visually confirm the changes — whether missing signs have been installed, faded markings repainted, or damaged boards replaced — ensuring compliance with IRC 67 and IRC 35.
By integrating the guidelines of IRC 67 and IRC 35 into an AI-powered platform, Road Athena transforms traditional road safety audits into a continuous, verifiable, and intelligent process. It helps engineers and decision-makers not only detect safety gaps but also monitor improvements over time, ensuring that highways remain compliant, well-marked, and safe for every road user.
With Road Athena, Hanu AI is supporting NHAI’s vision of smart and safe highways, bringing technology and IRC standards together to make India’s roads safer, smarter, and future-ready.
