Diageo India Drives Road Safety Study in Bengaluru

Bengaluru's roads are under mounting pressure — and a new, science-based initiative from Diageo India is working to change that. Diageo India, in collaboration with the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) and the Bengaluru Traffic Police, has undertaken a comprehensive road safety and traffic engineering study aimed at improving safety and traffic efficiency at key intersections across the city. The initiative, implemented as part of Diageo India's Corporate Social Responsibility commitments, represents a significant step toward data-driven, evidence-based urban road safety management in one of India's fastest-growing and most congested metropolitan cities.

Overview of Diageo India's Road Safety Initiative

CSR-Driven Road Safety Research in Bengaluru

The initiative is anchored in a recognition that meaningful road safety improvement in a complex urban environment like Bengaluru cannot be achieved through awareness campaigns or enforcement drives alone. It requires a scientific understanding of how traffic actually moves, where the engineering deficiencies lie, and what targeted, cost-effective interventions can deliver the greatest safety and efficiency gains. Diageo India's partnership with IRTE and Bengaluru Traffic Police brings together three distinct and complementary areas of expertise — corporate resources and commitment, technical road safety knowledge, and on-ground enforcement experience — into a unified, coordinated effort.

The initiative focuses on three interconnected dimensions of urban road safety improvement: research and data collection, on-ground infrastructure assessment, and capacity building for traffic enforcement officers. Together, these elements form a holistic framework designed to produce both immediate, practical recommendations and a longer-term foundation for sustained road safety governance in Bengaluru.

As the corporate lead on the initiative, Diageo India (United Spirits Limited) is channelling its CSR commitment toward one of the most pressing quality-of-life challenges facing the city — a challenge that affects every resident, commuter, and pedestrian who navigates Bengaluru's increasingly congested road network every day.

Three Key Intersections Under Scientific Assessment

Diverse Urban Contexts — One Common Safety Goal

The road safety study assessed three carefully selected intersections across Bengaluru, chosen to represent the diversity of urban contexts in which traffic safety challenges manifest differently and demand tailored solutions.

• Chalukya Circle was selected as a representative of administrative zone traffic dynamics — a location where government buildings, institutional traffic, and mixed vehicle types converge in ways that create specific safety and congestion challenges.

• Cantonment Railway Station Junction represents the transport hub context — a high-intensity location where commuter traffic, pedestrians arriving and departing from a major rail terminus, and vehicles dropping off and picking up passengers all compete for limited road space in conditions of extreme peak-hour pressure.

• H Siddaiah Circle was selected to represent the recreational zone context — an area where the character of road use shifts across different times of day, with leisure and retail traffic adding complexity to movement patterns that require specific design and enforcement responses.

By selecting intersections that span these three distinct urban contexts, the study ensures that its findings and recommendations are not narrowly applicable to a single traffic scenario but reflect the full breadth of road safety challenges facing a city as diverse and complex as Bengaluru.

Study Methodology and Traffic Analysis Approach

A Scientific, Data-Driven Assessment Framework

The assessment of the three selected intersections was conducted using a rigorous, multi-dimensional methodology designed to capture both the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of road safety and traffic performance. The study employed traffic volume analysis to establish baseline data on the number and type of vehicles passing through each intersection — providing the empirical foundation on which all subsequent analysis and recommendations are based.

Alongside quantitative traffic counting, the study conducted detailed behavioural observations at each location — documenting how drivers, riders, and pedestrians actually navigate the intersections, including violations, unsafe crossing patterns, conflict points between different road user types, and the influence of road design on behaviour. This observational dimension is critical because it captures the human factors that raw traffic data alone cannot reveal.

The methodology also incorporated structured road safety audits at each intersection, systematically evaluating the physical infrastructure — lane markings, signage, signal placement, pedestrian facilities, and junction geometry — against established road safety standards. The analysis examined traffic movement patterns, pedestrian usage and crossing behaviour, and the role of road design in either enabling or obstructing safe traffic flow, while identifying specific opportunities where targeted improvements could deliver meaningful efficiency and safety gains.

Engineering Interventions Recommended for Safer Roads

Low-Cost Solutions With High Safety Impact

A central finding of the study is that significant improvements in road safety and traffic efficiency at the three assessed intersections can be achieved through targeted, low-cost engineering interventions — without the need for large-scale infrastructure redevelopment. This finding has important implications for road safety policy in Bengaluru and other Indian cities, where budget constraints often impede comprehensive infrastructure upgrades.

The study recommended a range of practical engineering measures including improved lane channelisation to create clearer, more predictable traffic movement patterns at each junction. Pedestrian refuge islands were identified as a priority intervention — providing safe mid-road waiting areas that allow pedestrians to cross busy multi-lane roads in stages, dramatically reducing their exposure to vehicle conflict.

Optimised signal placement and timing adjustments were recommended to improve the efficiency of traffic flow through each intersection, reducing unnecessary delays and the aggressive driving behaviour that stop-start congestion frequently provokes. Enhanced road signage — clearer, better positioned, and more consistently maintained — was identified as a straightforward and cost-effective measure to improve compliance and reduce the uncertainty that contributes to unsafe driving decisions at complex junctions.

Two-Day Training Programme for Bengaluru Traffic Police

Building Capacity at the Frontline of Road Safety

Alongside the physical infrastructure study, the initiative invested directly in the human capacity of Bengaluru's traffic enforcement system. A two-day training programme for Bengaluru Traffic Police officers was conducted on March 30 and 31 by IRTE — equipping frontline officers with a deeper technical understanding of traffic engineering principles and their application to day-to-day enforcement and traffic management decisions.

The training addressed a critical gap in urban road safety governance: the disconnect between traffic engineering knowledge and on-ground enforcement practice. When traffic police officers understand why roads are designed the way they are, how design influences driver behaviour, and where the highest-risk points in a junction's geometry lie, they can direct their enforcement efforts with far greater precision and effectiveness. The programme is designed to bridge exactly this gap — creating a shared technical language between engineers and enforcement officers that enables more coordinated, evidence-based road safety management.

Leadership Voices on Road Safety and Urban Mobility

Karthik Reddy on the Need for Coordinated Urban Traffic Management

Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Bengaluru City, Karthik Reddy, articulated the multi-dimensional challenge of managing traffic in a city of Bengaluru's scale and complexity. Effective traffic management, he noted, requires a strong understanding of enforcement, road engineering, and on-ground operational realities — three areas that have historically operated in insufficient coordination with each other. Initiatives like this study play an important role in strengthening the technical capacity of traffic officers and bringing valuable engineering insights into the decisions that shape day-to-day traffic management.

He further emphasised that greater coordination between planning, engineering, and enforcement agencies — coupled with equal attention to both vehicular movement and pedestrian safety — will be essential to improving traffic efficiency and making Bengaluru's roads safer for all users.

Devashish Dasgupta on Scaling the Initiative

Devashish Dasgupta, Corporate Relations Director at Diageo India (USL), outlined the initiative's ambition to move beyond its current pilot phase. The science-based, data-driven approach piloted across three key junctions — combined with the capacity building sessions for traffic officers — is designed as the foundation for a phased scale-up of the initiative across more of Bengaluru's high-risk intersections. The goal is not a one-time study but a replicable model of evidence-based road safety improvement that can be systematically expanded across the city.

Bengaluru, with over 14 million residents and more than 1.2 crore registered vehicles, faces some of the most intense urban road safety pressures of any city in India. Initiatives like this — grounded in data, driven by genuine multi-stakeholder collaboration, and oriented toward practical, scalable solutions — represent exactly the kind of response the city's road safety challenge demands.