CHENNAI: The city corporation is now using a digital data collection tool to identify and map stretches in the city that lack sufficient street lights, as part of its efforts to make the city safe.
Mobile applications that allow for both crowdsourcing and data collection through image processing to identify if certain stretches of the street are safe for women based on nine parameters that includes sufficient lighting, walkways, availability of public transport, security, visibility, openness and gender usage, are used for this purpose.
The applications have been created by Safetipin, an organisation that has been working with governments to ensure public spaces are safe and inclusive for women, and the data is handed to the city corporation for action. “Some of our data is crowdsourced and we also collect data through images following which we make recommendations to the city corporation or point out where problems,” said Kalpana Viswanath, CEO of Safetipin.
In a women’s safety audit conducted by the organisation in Tondiarpet last year where it audited public places including those near schools and colleges, the audit found that 60% of mapped areas had good presence of people, 85% had public transport within reach, and 91% had adequate streetlights. But the area was lacking in terms of footpaths and walkability.
For now, the civic body has identified unsafe stretches in Semmencherry and Tondiarpet. The corporation’s gender lab has also taken up a survey of parks and is collating the data in order to see if they are safe for women.