Mind The Gap
Through the jammed-packed traffic, amid crawling vehicles, people are restlessly honking. With hardly any space left, a few vehicles tried to squeeze in amidst incessant honking. Interestingly no one was able to move, including the ones who were making crisscross navigation. I wondered if the honking sound has a direct line with the auditory cords of Superman. As if superman will arrive at any time and will clear the road in no time. I kept wondering why people were so impatient.
We continued our journey and reached a railway crossing. Tracks were barricaded as the train was just about to cross. Guess what? Restlessness in people continued. This time, they weren’t honking but were crossing the barricades to cross the tracks.
This reminded me of a Doordarshan TV ad campaign to raise awareness of safety on a railway crossing during my childhood. Despite efforts from all agencies, year after year, we continue to have accidents and deaths. While there are many gaps to be bridged amongst multiple stakeholders, there was still something very intrinsic to the human mindset that drives such behavior.
It was clear to me that this was way beyond a lack of patience or restlessness, whether it is road or train safety.
So, what was it? It must be a deep-rooted behavioral pattern. As a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) coach, I became even more curious to learn about what drives people to risk their lives despite all warnings. I wanted to know why people behave the way they behave.
This quest led me to connect with one of my friends, Ram Prasad, in Chicago, Co-Founder & CEO, FinalMile, a Fractal company based in Mumbai, Austin, and Johannesburg. He and his team have done an incredible pro-bono job in bringing the accident down by 75% through their solution for Mumbai’s suburban railway network.
About Ram:
Ram is an entrepreneur and co-founded FinalMile with Biju Dominic, Chairman of FinalMile, Anand Parameswaran & Anurag Vaish. Ram is a behavior & design architect. He successfully integrated behavior science and design concepts to solve many complex social problems. His team primarily works on socially impactful projects with various stakeholders such as State Government, NGOs, the General public, public administration, etc. Ram is also a TEDx speaker, and one of his talks on Who drives our decisions and behavior is extremely insightful. During our conversation, we deep-dived into a couple of impact stories, research methods, human behavior & dynamics, etc.
On accidents while crossing the train tracks:
The genesis of the behavior: especially people crossing tracks even when approaching the train is clearly visible.
Team FinalMile’s research led to many conclusions on warning signs, train horns familiarity, etc. They relied on one of the most relevant observations by Herschel Leibowitz on visual perception. It says we underestimate the speed of oncoming large objects. For example: if a train travels at 60 km/h, we perceive it as traveling at 40 km/h. This leads to deciding that we have adequate time to cross the tracks. Often this error in judgment results in most accidents. While we are “consciously” aware of the warning signs and horns, non-consciously, we still decide the way we decide. Thus, a “nonconscious” solution must be thought through.
Conscious vs. non-conscious:
Imagine when we are learning to drive, it is a very conscious activity and so we struggle to execute multiple simultaneous actions such as applying brakes, switching lanes, clutch-gear coordination, looking at the mirror, etc. Once we have learned to drive, it becomes much more nonconscious, and we can execute tasks without paying too much attention.
Solution:
The solution demanded a behavior change, and the same was effectively altered at its root using tactics listed below:
1. Posters: A close-up face photograph of just before one is hit by a train. This provoked instinct fear at the non-conscious level.
2. Honking style: Scientific study showed that the brain’s attention peaks between musical notes, thus two horns instead of a single long hoot.
3. Yellow lines on tracks: Puzzle how this can help? Bright colors attract attention and disappear quickly underneath the train in motion. The brain unconsciously re-estimates the speed and becomes alert.
When these solutions were implemented for many stretches of the Central Line in Mumbai, the number of accidents fell by almost 75%.
To study the full case study, please visit: https://www.thefinalmile.com/railway-safety
Other impactful projects:
Ram & his team has successfully delivered many such socially impactful projects in public health HIV prevention, maternal and neonatal child health, driving learning through ed tech, Improving Toilet usage under Clean India Mission, Financial inclusion, etc through an effective and sustainable change in behavior.
In conclusion, while one cannot deny the gaps in safety measures on roads & train tracks, one must also accept personal accountability for our behavior. These case studies depict behavioral issues. These issues often lead to miscalculations and misjudgments of risks associated with our actions, causing accidents, sometimes fatal ones. Understanding why we behave a certain way and how those can be tuned at the foundation level is crucial.
Thanks to Ram for sharing his great insights on Behavioural science with me. I wish you all the best for all your future projects.
