Adopt Public Transport for Traffic De-Congestion

The spectacular growth of vehicular traffic in developing countries has resulted in traffic congestion, pollution, longer journey time and increased road accidents.  In the last couple of decades, Indian metropolitan cities have experienced rapid urbanization, unprecedented growth of industry, commerce and employment and thereby adding millions of vehicles.  Today the Indian metros like New-Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad have between them more than 25 million vehicles.  But there has been no commensurate growth in the road infrastructure.  The resultant scenario is that there are too many vehicles on the road occupying a limited space.  Therefore, the greatest challenge for civic authorities and Police in these cities is traffic management, more than providing civic amenities and security to citizens.

Bengaluru City which is known for traffic congestion has a population of nearly 12 million and vehicular population of about 7.5 million.  The people-to-vehicle ratio in the city is one of the highest in the country, which means, practically, every second Bengalurean has a vehicle.  Such a large number of vehicles without adequate road capacity is leading to traffic congestion, longer journey time and low average speed.

Vehicle Population in Bengaluru as on 31.12.2018

Traffic congestion is alarming at peak hours in areas like Hosur Road, Bannerghatta Road, Old Madras Road, ITPL area, Nagawara and Koramangala Inner Ring Road where several company employees commute to and from work in their own vehicles.  Most of these vehicles have single-occupancy, which take occupy considerable road capacity and lead to longer traffic queues.

One of the important reasons for traffic congestion in Bengaluru City is lack of adequate public transport system.  The City has around 6500 public transport buses and around 40 Kms. of metro connectivity.  Accordingly to draft Revised Master Plan for Bengaluru – 2031, the model share of public transport in total over all trips is only 48%.  Private vehicles constitute 52% of the total one crore trips per day in Bengaluru.  Ideally a city should have 75% of model share of public transport. For eg., in Mumbai the public transport share of total trips is 82% due to good commuter rail network.  As a result Mumbai has for less private vehicles when compare to Bengaluru.

It is well known that public transport occupies less road space and causes less pollution per passenger-km than personal vehicles.  As such, public transport is a more sustainable form of transport.  Therefore, the Stake holder agencies should promote investments in public transport as well as measures that make its use more attractive than in the past.  BMTC should increase its fleet to 10,000 buses and 2^nd phase of Metro constructions should be completed early. Apart from this, sub-urban rail system connecting areas outside the city and central areas need to be introduced early.  People should be encouraged to travel in public modes of transport by giving them incentives.   World over urban public transport is highly subsidized to make city travel cheaper and economical.  People will shift from personal vehicle to public transport due to cheaper option.

Further Bengaluru City has corridors that have varying densities of travel and hence need technologies that best match the level of demand on the corridor.  This often requires different operators managing such systems.  However, a good public transport system is one that is perceived by the user as a single system and allows seamless travel between one mode and the other as also between systems managed by different operators.  Such seamless interchange is possible if proper inter-change infrastructure is available and users are able to use a single ticket over all such systems.  This also requires that a single agency takes responsibility for coordination so that there is a common approach to public transport planning and management.

There is a wide spectrum of public transport technologies.  At one end are high capacity, but high cost, technologies like underground metro systems and at the other are low capacity bus systems running on a shared right of way.  Within these extreme are a range of intermediate possibilities, such as buses on dedicated right of way, elevated sky bus and monorail systems, electric trolley buses, etc.  While some of them are most effective over high density trunk corridors others prove useful as feeder systems or sub-systems that serve limited sub-areas within a city.   In Bengaluru City, apart from completing the 2^nd phase of Metro and increasing BMTC buses to 10,000, Commuter Rail System should also be developed by putting additional tracks on the existing railway tracks in the city.  Passenger trains from Yeshwanthpur and Kengeri to White Field and also to Kempegowda International Airport will encourage commuters to switch from personalized vehicles to public transport.

Employees of major companies, especially IT industry, in Bengaluru have a major role to play in encouraging their employees to travel through Public Transport System.  Recent initiatives by some Government agencies to observe Bus Day, No-Traffic Day etc are a welcome move to reduce dependency on private vehicles.  A good economic and sustainable public transport system will definitely reduce vehicular traffic on roads and make the city more livable.