Climate change and Mumbai’s 150-year-old drainage system cause excessive waterlogging in the city every year. Due to age-old infrastructural problems, road safety has always been a concern for the people and authorities. Hidden under waterlogged roads open manholes before death traps for bikers and pedestrians.

While some manhole covers are left open by the locals for the rainwater to escape, increasing manhole cover thefts worsen the issue. Corrosion makes it impossible for the municipality to individually lock them. Putting rider safety first TVS, India’s third largest two-wheeler manufacturer developed a low-cost, easily scalable safety device that costs $20 to manufacture at scale. The road safety initiative was carried out across multiple flood-prone areas across the city of Mumbai.

Every year during monsoons when the city is flooded, people have no choice but to step out for their livelihood. Two-wheeler riders are the obvious victims of the city’s submerged open manholes. People travel knowing the dangers of open manholes. An innovative warning device was designed that can be fitted within manholes to save lives and improve road safety all year round. Concealed beneath manholes, this cost-effective, low-maintenance device rises up to 5 feet in the air when a manhole cover is dislodged on a flooded road. Once activated, it sends audio and visual signals to commuters and passersby to alert them about the presence of an open manhole. A specially designed app connected to the device alerts the municipality in real-time about the geo-location of the open manhole. The road safety initiative made the roads safer for 2-wheeler riders as well as pedestrians during monsoons.

Phase 1 of this project began with research in May 2021. We identified the problem of submerged open manholes and started working towards a cost-effective, scalable solution.

On culminating our research, we began prototyping and product development in September 2021. Requiring zero motors, this 3D-printed device was designed so that it could be manufactured at scale at just $20.

By Jan 2022, we began phase 3 by identifying flood-prone areas across Mumbai. Flood-hazard mapping methods.

In March 2022, we undertook the final phase of the project where the devices were deployed in flood-prone areas across the city.

The device is made of recyclable plastic and filaments, 3D printed parts as well as a LED blinker, buzzer, microcontroller, antenna, buoyancy tank and a lithium polymer battery. Every electronic part has ROHS compliance. An open-source prototyping platform(Arduino) was used to program the device and QGIS was used to map flood-prone areas.

A specially designed app connected to the device alerts municipal officers about the geolocation in real-time and in regional languages, so that they can take prompt action. The app also notifies the municipality if a manhole is left open above the standard maintenance time to avoid any unpleasant incidents. The device can be manufactured at scale at $20. Flood-hazard mapping methods were used to identify flood-prone areas across the city where the device was installed.

After the first phase of the initiative, there was a significant decline in casualties owing to the Mumbai municipality’s deployment of the device across the city. Phase 2 of the Responsible Manhole has already been initiated by the Bengaluru municipality and they will deploy these devices in over 200 locations. The project’s success has also opened up conversations with 5+ municipalities across India. IIT Jodhpur is also working to improve scalability for phase 2. In December 2022, the Mumbai High Court ordered better surveillance of manhole covers. The device’s open-source blueprint has also been made available to civic bodies worldwide for any municipality to use.