In Cameroon, road accidents account for more annual deaths than Malaria and AIDS combined, according to the World Bank. One innovator has created an app to combat this reality. Safe Travel is designed to prevent vehicular accidents by equipping drivers and the relevant authorities with comprehensive, up-to-date information.
Created by Cameroon-based inventor Achiri Arnold Nji, Safe Travel is a mobile software system designed to monitor the speed, location and number of passengers in a bus, and alert both the driver and authorities to potential dangers.
When a bus, vehicle or other forms of transport is connected to the Safe Travel system, its behaviour, whether it be reckless driving or other dangers, is automatically recorded and evaluated by the Safe Travel team.
If the data shows cause for concern, road safety authorities are immediately contacted. If an accident does occur, the app also immediately notifies the families of victims, road safety teams and nearby hospitals.
It does this using an android app called Travelr, which is already available on Google Play. An iOS version is under development, and revenue is generated by selling the data collected to insurance agencies and road authorities.
Nji was recently named as one of the shortlisted African innovators in the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation 2016/2017.
“The government of Cameroon is trying very hard to reduce road accidents, but is failing miserably,” he told Disrupt Africa. “So we have developed our platform, which works with the same capacity as a speedometer, a speed radar and a black box combined, all using a mobile phone.”