Road connectivity in North-East region of India is limited and safety on these roads are challenging due to hilly terrain. In 2015, there were 9291 crashes happened in north-East states resulting in 3106 deaths and 10,152 injuries. Also, during the year 2015, the highest accident severity (road accident deaths per 100 accidents) was reported in one of the North-East states i.e. Mizoram (102.9 per cent).
Road Connectivity and Safety jointly serves the society better and therefore a systematic approach for prioritizing road connectivity and safety improvement is very much essential. It is a key component of overall development of any settlement area (habitat, village and city). Various schemes of government towards improving road connectivity in North-East States are in-place (PMGSY, SHARDP-NE). This project focuses on two aspects of connectivity. First, road network connectivity and second, safety on roads. Focusing on these two aspects, study has been divided into five major tasks covering various activities: (i) reviewing existing data base (maps and data) and preparing an upgraded GIS database covering road network, settlement locations, crash data and census data (ii) assessment of various settlements will be carried out based on the self sufficiency of a settlement area (iii) computing the Road Connectivity Index (RCI) (iv) calculating Road Connectivity Index (RCI) to be further supported by Road Safety Index (RSI) and (v) Overall combined score of RCI which will be able to help in better decision making towards prioritization new construction of roads as well as improvement of existing roads.