MoRTH: Revised vehicle-safety requirements, rollout from 2027

The Centre has notified revised vehicle-safety requirements for frontal and side collisions, with compliance beginning on 1 October 2027 for new models and 1 October 2028 for all models covered by the relevant standards. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways set the deadlines in notification S.O. 5723(E), dated 19 October 2026 and published in the Gazette of India on 21 October 2026.

The notification also sets phased deadlines for pedestrian protection, rear-impact safety, event data recorders, immobilisers and foot controls. These provisions have separate implementation dates extending to 2032; publication of the amendment does not bring every requirement into operation immediately.

The ministry issued the amendment under Section 109(3) and Section 110(1)(k) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, read with Rule 124(1) of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989. It changes the technical standards table in notification S.O. 1365(E) of 13 December 2004, which identifies safety requirements, the standards governing them and their implementation dates.

Frontal and side-impact standards move to revised versions

For occupant protection in an offset frontal collision, the ministry’s notification introduces AIS-098 (Rev. 1). For lateral collisions, meaning impacts from the side, it introduces AIS-099 (Rev. 1). Both follow the new-model and all-model deadlines announced for 2027 and 2028.

The distinction matters because the table does not impose a single compliance date across every model. It first applies the revised standards to new models, then extends them to all models within the standards’ scope.

The replacement table retains the earlier AIS-098/2008 and AIS-099/2008 entries during the transition. Those entries record implementation from 1 October 2017 for new models and 1 October 2019 for all models, and remain valid until the corresponding revised requirements take effect.

The notification therefore updates an existing collision-safety framework rather than introducing frontal and side-impact requirements for the first time. It also retains a separate entry for the behaviour of a vehicle’s steering mechanism in a head-on collision under AIS-096/2008.

A further frontal-collision requirement, AIS-201, focuses on restraint systems. Moneycontrol explains these as protective systems such as seat belts and airbags that help protect occupants during a crash. Under the ministry’s notification, this requirement applies to new models from 1 October 2029 and all covered models from 1 October 2031.

That is a separate entry from the revised offset frontal-collision standard, with its own timetable. The Gazette notification names the applicable standards but does not reproduce their detailed testing procedures or performance thresholds.

For these collision requirements, the table repeatedly specifies that coverage is for the vehicles identified in the relevant standard. Its use of “all models” must therefore be read within that scope, rather than as an unqualified reference to every kind of vehicle.

Pedestrian and rear-impact protection have separate deadlines

The ministry has also introduced AIS-100 (Rev. 1) for protecting pedestrians and other vulnerable road users in collisions with motor vehicles. It applies to new models from 1 October 2028.

The earlier pedestrian-protection entry, AIS-100/2010, records implementation from 1 October 2018 for new models and 1 October 2020 for all models. The amended table keeps it valid until implementation of the replacement entry.

The revised pedestrian entry does not give a separate all-model deadline. Instead, it specifies a further requirement: mandatory use of the Flexible Pedestrian Leg Impactor, or FlexPLI, test tool from 1 October 2032. Moneycontrol describes FlexPLI as a tool used to assess pedestrian leg protection.

For rear impacts, the notification introduces AIS-101 (Rev. 1), covering protection of the fuel system and safety of the electric powertrain. The electric powertrain is the vehicle’s electric drive system, as Moneycontrol explains. This requirement applies to all models covered by the standard from 1 April 2029, without a separate earlier date for new models.

The provisions thus address different risks: protection of people inside the vehicle, protection of people struck by it, and the safety of fuel and electric-drive systems when a vehicle is hit from behind. The ministry assigns each requirement its own standard rather than combining them into one crash-test rule.

Data recorders, immobilisers and pedals

Vehicle-approval requirements relating to event data recorders, or EDRs, under AIS-192 take effect on 1 October 2029, according to the notification. The entry does not split implementation between new and all models.

ABP Live explains that an EDR records technical information around a crash. Depending on the system, this can include vehicle speed, brake application, seat belt use and airbag deployment timing. These are general descriptions of EDR functions, not a list of data fields specified in the Gazette notification.

ABP Live also reports that such information can help reconstruct a collision but cannot, on its own, establish fault. Other evidence about the circumstances remains necessary.

Separately, the ministry’s notification makes immobilisers mandatory for M1-category vehicles from 1 October 2027 under AIS-076. Moneycontrol identifies M1 as a passenger-vehicle category and describes an immobiliser as an anti-theft device that helps prevent unauthorised starting. The Gazette table distinguishes this mandatory fitment requirement from its existing entry governing alarms and immobilisers in M- and N-category vehicles “if fitted”.

Revised requirements for the arrangement and operation of foot controls, such as pedals, follow under AIS-035 (Rev. 1). The ministry sets 1 April 2028 as the implementation date for new models in both the M1 entry and the corresponding foot-controls entry in Table A.

Although the notification fixes the EDR implementation date, it does not set out who may retrieve recorded information, whose authorisation would be required or how that information may be used. Those access questions are not resolved by this amendment.