ITS World Congress 2026 Gangneung: Why Road Safety 2.0 Must Define India's Mobility Future
At the opening ceremony of the 32nd ITS World Congress in Gangneung, South Korea, the message was clear: the future of mobility is connection. For India, that connection must begin with saving lives on our roads
32nd
ITS World Congress
60,000
Minds gathered in Gangneung
90
Countries represented
19–23 Oct
2026, Gangneung, South Korea
Gangneung, South Korea, 19 October 2026: It was a privilege to witness the Opening Ceremony of the 32nd ITS World Congress in Gangneung today. Held under the theme “Beyond Mobility, Connected World”, the ITS World Congress 2026 has brought together 60,000 minds from 90 countries around one powerful idea: the future of mobility is connection.
The ITS World Congress is the world’s leading gathering on intelligent transport systems (ITS), where governments, cities, road authorities, industry and researchers come together to shape how people and goods will move in the decades ahead. Sitting in that hall with the global ITS community was a reminder of how quickly mobility is changing, and of how much India stands to gain from that change.
ABOUT THE CONGRESS
The 2026 Gangneung ITS World Congress runs from 19 to 23 October 2026 in Gangneung, South Korea, under the theme “Beyond Mobility, Connected World”. ITS India Forum serves on the Board of the ITS World Congress and represents India’s intelligent transportation ecosystem on this global platform.
From Roads That Move Vehicles to Roads That Protect Lives
For a century, we built roads to move vehicles. The next century will be about roads that protect lives. That shift, from capacity to safety and from concrete to intelligence, ran through the opening of the Congress, and it is exactly the shift India now needs to make.
For India, this is not a vision. It is an urgency.
India's Road Safety Crisis: The Numbers We Cannot Ignore
1.77 lakh
Lives lost on Indian roads in 2024
485
Deaths every day
20
Deaths every hour
#1
Highest road toll in the world
These are not just statistics; they are families, livelihoods and futures lost. As stated by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in Parliament, road accident deaths in India rose to about 1.77 lakh in 2024. That is roughly 485 lives every day and 20 every hour, the highest road toll of any country in the world.
“Every crash is a signal we failed to read in time.”
AKHILESH SRIVASTAVA, PRESIDENT, ITS INDIA FORUM
How Intelligent Transport Systems Can Prevent Crashes
Imagine roads that see, vehicles that talk, and systems that act before tragedy strikes. That is the promise of Intelligent Transport Systems for road safety in India.
AI That Anticipates Risk
AI-powered video analytics, roadside sensors and crash data can identify high-risk corridors, black spots, over-speeding, wrong-way driving and driver fatigue before they turn into crashes. Instead of counting accidents after they happen, authorities can see where and when risk is rising and intervene early, through targeted enforcement, engineering fixes or dynamic speed management.
V2X That Warns in Milliseconds
Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication lets vehicles exchange information with other vehicles, traffic signals, roadside units and vulnerable road users. A warning about a stalled truck beyond a blind curve, a red-light violator at a junction or dense fog ahead can reach a driver in milliseconds, far faster than any human can react.
Response That Beats the Golden Hour
The first hour after a serious crash, the Golden Hour, often decides whether a victim survives. Automatic incident detection, automatic crash notification, integrated traffic command centres and real-time ambulance routing can cut emergency response times and connect victims to trauma care when it matters most.
“When roads begin to think, lives begin to count.”
AKHILESH SRIVASTAVA, PRESIDENT, ITS INDIA FORUM
Road Safety 2.0: Preventing Crashes by Design
This is the soul of Road Safety 2.0: moving from reacting to accidents to preventing them by design. Road Safety 1.0 relied largely on awareness campaigns, manual enforcement and post-crash response. Road Safety 2.0 builds safety into the system itself:
- Safe-by-design roads, where data guides the engineering of junctions, curves, crossings and work zones.
- Connected vehicles and infrastructure that share hazard information in real time.
- Automated, transparent enforcement that makes compliance consistent and less dependent on manual checks.
- Integrated emergency response that treats every minute after a crash as critical.
It is the same thinking behind the global Vision Zero approach: no loss of life on the road is acceptable, and the transport system must be designed to forgive human error.
What Gangneung Teaches India
Gangneung shows how a small city can inspire the world. India, with its scale and digital backbone, can lead it.
India already has many of the building blocks: FASTag across its national highways, city-level traffic management systems such as Delhi’s AI-enabled Intelligent Traffic Management System, and a fast-growing digital public infrastructure. The next step is to connect these systems, adopt common standards and build the skilled workforce to run them, the very priorities ITS India Forum set out at ITS India Congress 2026 earlier this month.
“The safest road is not the widest one. It is the most intelligent one.”
AKHILESH SRIVASTAVA, PRESIDENT, ITS INDIA FORUM
Glimpses from the 32nd ITS World Congress, Gangneung
Moments from the opening day of the ITS World Congress 2026 in Gangneung, South Korea. Click any photo to view it in full size, or browse more event photos in the photo gallery.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where is the ITS World Congress 2026 being held?
The 32nd ITS World Congress is being held from 19 to 23 October 2026 in Gangneung, South Korea.
What is the theme of the ITS World Congress 2026?
The theme of the 2026 Gangneung ITS World Congress is “Beyond Mobility, Connected World”.
How many people die in road accidents in India?
About 1.77 lakh people lost their lives in road accidents in India in 2024, which is roughly 485 deaths every day and 20 every hour.
What is Road Safety 2.0?
Road Safety 2.0 is a shift from reacting to accidents to preventing them by design, using intelligent transport systems such as AI-based risk prediction, V2X communication, automated enforcement and faster emergency response.
How can Intelligent Transport Systems improve road safety in India?
ITS can predict high-risk locations and behaviour using AI, warn drivers of hazards through V2X in milliseconds, and detect crashes automatically so that emergency services reach victims within the Golden Hour.
About ITS India Forum
ITS India Forum is India’s national think tank for Intelligent Transportation Systems and smart mobility. Established in September 2023, it brings together 50+ members from industry, Government, academia and research, with 10 IITs as Knowledge Partners and research partners including CSIR–CRRI and AITD. The Forum has published 20+ study reports, including India’s first comprehensive ITS Market Survey and Report, and serves on the Boards of the ITS Asia-Pacific Forum and the ITS World Congress. It advances policy, standards, technology validation, research and capacity building to enable safer, smarter and more sustainable transport for Viksit Bharat @2047.
Reshaping the Future of Mobility
Media Contact: ITS India Forum | itsindiaforum.com
###