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In
this modern age of rapid urbanisation all over the world,
especially in developing countries, urban transport systems have
attracted the attention of the authorities, since the need for
mobility of urban people and goods is as essential as housing,
water supply and sewerage. All possible modes of travel such as
rail, road, water and air depending upon availability and
affordability, are being explored for harness, by transportation
experts. A multi-disciplinary approach is being adopted with the
help of urban planners, technologists, fiscal experts, legal
experts, research, development and environmental groups.
In
spite of a comprehensive thought process in the urban transport
planning activity, the most fundamental form of transport in any
urban area is with the aid of its indispensable and omnipresent
road transport. Road transportation is the first choice for any
movement within an urban area. Increasing expansion has meant that
road transportation is supplemented by railways in large cities,
but it can never be superseded. It is this system of transport
that has made the metropolis possible. Ironically, road transport
is also now being blamed for some of the major woes of the modern
metropolis – congestion, delays at central city, suburban sprawl
and air pollution. The metropolitan cities have now grown to the
point where they threaten to strangle the transportation that made
them possible. This paradox is particularly striking because in
the past several decades there have been more revolutionary
changes in transportation than in the previous history. With
technical ability to solve its transportation problems well in
hand, the modern city is confronted by the problem in a more
complex form than even before. Despite all methods of movements
available, the problem in the cities is “how to move?”
Why
has this happened? It is easy and indeed reasonably popular to
make the automobile the culprit, because the most obvious feature
that most of us encounter is the long line of vehicles crawling
along the main arterials during rush hour. But it is equally
possible to argue that the automobile is the victim, to some
extent the victim of its own amazing success. It will not be wrong
to say that little has been accomplished towards adopting the city
to the automobile age. To put it in another way, to the extent
that our urban problems are related to the automobile, they are
due largely to introducing a new form of transportation into an
old form of urban organisation.
Transport
demands
An
important feature of urban road transport is the phenomenal growth
of transport demand. The passenger transport demand is expressed
in terms of daily vehicular passenger trips and depends on three
main factors: (i) the number of people in an urban area moving
around for various needs and causing demand for systems and
services; (ii) the average trip per person, i.e. mobility rate;
(iii) the increase in trip length caused due to expansion of the
city’s spatial frame. In urban areas the daily vehicular
passenger trips has been steadily growing over the years and in
cities in India, the figure is estimated to nearly double by the
turn of the century as compared to 1981 levels.
The
process of urbanisation has resulted in imbalance in the spatial
distribution of population and economic activities necessitating
large-scale intra-city movement of people, goods and vehicles.
Since the transport infrastructure development and provision of
public transport facilities have severely lagged behind, the roads
in cities are now virtually suffering from explosion of
personalised vehicle, acute traffic congestion, steeply increasing
number of accidents and high levels of pollution. This situation
is evident in the transport scenario of Mumbai. The physical area
of the city has increased over the years but the destination in
the central business district has remained unchanged.
Consequently, commutation to this area is very high. Over the last
two decades, the number of motorcars in Mumbai has increased four
times while taxi population has increased six times. The road
length, however, has increased from 800 kilometres in 1951 to
about 1,800 kilometres in 2001. A substantial part of this
increase in road length is because new areas were added to the
city.
Road
network and land use
The
planning, operation and management of urban road transport
involves the following components road network and the land use.
In most of the metropolitan cities of India, the hierarchy of
urban roads derives mainly from a random mix of historical
leftovers and a succession of piecemeal planning exercises. The
pattern of urban transportation tended to concentrate on the
central city and the urban street system contribute to the same
centralising trends, converging on the central business district.
In addition, city streets did not, and for the most part, still do
not differentiate between types of traffic. The same streets have
to carry local and through traffic, pleasure and commercial
vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians and stray dogs.
The
first step in relieving congestion is decentralisation. In order
to facilitate dispersal of traffic and population from central to
outlying areas on the periphery. Within the city, it is necessary
to bring about a land use pattern, which ensures a balanced
spatial spread of employment opportunities as the city grows. In
Mumbai, attempts have been made towards this objective by creation
of Bandra-Kurla Complex, New Bombay and Kalyan Complex. Such a
strategy of decentralisation will create polycentric form of road
network structure instead of the presently existing monocentric
forms.
Although
the total transportation demand and the travel time may increase,
yet the peak demand on the road network will greatly reduce,
relieving congestion. The metropolitan road system should then be
designed to facilitate the inter-suburban traffic and keep it away
from the central business district with a properly planned network
of link roads and circumferential road system. There is a need to
prepare comprehensive plans to help the system conform to the
demands generated by the emerging distribution of employment and
location. Such an effort is required to be initiated immediately
for all medium and large size cities. Land and resources for
development of transport infrastructures should be earmarked so
that it becomes easier to institute necessary
improvements/modification in the urban road network to facilitate
transportation for future traffic demands. Once corridors of
movement have been identified, land could be reserved, though
construction work can be taken up in phases only, when the stage
of development demands such facilities.
Public
transport
In
metropolitan cities of India, public transport is the predominant
mode of movement because of low level of vehicle ownership. The
necessity for good public transport in cities is dictated by
consideration of optimum utilisation of existing network
facilities for meeting the increasing travel demand. The number of
commuters who can use an urban street system during peak hours is
strictly limited. The limits are determined by the proportion of
area devoted to streets, the type of vehicles, the length of the
peak period, the trip length and the number of commuters.
Studies
show that mass transit requires the least space to carry people,
followed by urban bus transportation. Space utilisation efficiency
and its use through a co-ordinated transport system should be
maximised. Efforts should be made to provide a level of service
comparable to personalised modes. The mass transport systems are
not only over crowded, but also have poor quality of service. Bus
services by state road transport undertakings, have been unable to
operate well or strengthen their city operations for want of
funds. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that ways and means
are devised to provide financial support to state road transport
undertakings to enable them to set separate units for city bus
operation with necessary facilities for terminals and parking of
bus fleets.
Intermediate
transport modes
Intermediate
transport modes like mini-buses, taxies, scooter rickshaws and
cycle rickshaws, falling in the category between private modes and
conventional bus transport and mass transit systems, also fulfil
travel requirements of urban areas of different dimensions. The
characteristic features of intermediate transport are its
relatively small occupancy, high manoeuvrability, door-to-door
service, and independent route selection. The gradual growth in
intermediate transport over the last two decades indicates the
inadequacy of public transport facilities, the need for
door-to-door and ‘journey-at-will’ service for the less
affluent who do not possess private vehicles. The intermediate
transport service should be selectively used so as to provide
better mobility. The efficiency of these services depend on the
conditions under which these system operate e.g. it will be more
efficient to ply mini-buses and taxis in suburban areas to provide
feeder service. Intermediate transport modes or para-transits help
bridge the gap between passenger transport demand and supply.
However, these modes have their own limitation in terms of fare,
distances of travel, convenience, comfort, reliability and safety.
Thus, there is a tendency of residents in the cities to own
personal vehicles.
Private
transport modes
The
easy availability of automotive two-wheelers and cars in the
market has changed the vehicle ownership pattern of the residents
of cities. Due to the increase in ownership of personalised
vehicles, it is possible for people to reside far from the city
centre in newly developed fringes. The density of population in
these fringes is not high enough to justify introduction of mass
transport modes or rickshaw services. In absence of any alternate
mode, they perform trips to the city in personal modes which
creates a major traffic problem in terms of parking and
congestion.
In
case of personalised travel by motorcar-owners, unfortunately the
physical dimensions of the motorcar together with the “one man,
one car” mentality creates a peak hour traffic problem both in
space and time.
Interestingly
enough, this problem could be greatly reduced if the owners can be
persuaded to pool their cars or adopt to public passenger
transport (if they do not need their cars during working hours).
Private
vehicles carry a small proportion of the total transport demand
but dominate the available road space in urban areas. There is an
urgent need to divert traffic from the personalised modes to
public transport and emphasise the need to improve availability
through route rationalisation and optimisation of resources.
Goods
transport
Despite
the fact that goods transport uses broadly the same networks in
urban areas, the planning and management of goods transport in the
overall urban context has hardly received any attention in
comparison with the efforts devoted to passenger transport. The
operation of goods transport service is characterised by the
following features.
·
Over-age vehicles are used for operating within the
city limits resulting in high pollution and high rate of
breakdowns.
·
No planned terminals exist in most cities resulting
in roadside parking, causing reduction in traffic capacity of
roads. Besides, absence of facilities for loading/unloading
results in carrying out these activities on the roadside, leading
to congestion and obstruction of traffic.
·
Freight vehicles operate at lower speeds affecting
the overall speed of the traffic stream.
·
The excessive loads carried by goods vehicles result
in deterioration of the road surface.
·
Freight-generating activities at wholesale markets
and freight terminals are growing in volume at places located
generally in the heart of the city.
It
is necessary to carry out systematic planning for the management
of goods traffic in the cities in order to alleviate the problems
and also to provide efficient, economic and pollution-free
environment. Policies are needed to be formulated and implemented
especially in the area of regulatory measures and construction of
truck terminals. Regulation on operation of slow- moving vehicles
like animal cart, handcart, pedal cart, should be imposed.
Restrictions on movement of heavy trucks on certain city roads for
certain hours of the day should be enforced. Loading pattern
should be monitored for overloading and hazardous materials.
The
establishment of truck terminals outside city limits to avoid
movement of heavy trucks in the city should be envisaged. The
movement of freight within the city is to be accomplished by
smaller vehicles like tempos and light commercial vehicles. In
Mumbai, efforts have been made by the MMRDA in this direction by
proposing truck terminal at Wadala Anik, warchousing complex at
Kalambli, inland water cargo terminal at Vashi, industry oil
terminal in Navi Mumbai, Railway siding for agricultural produce
at Turbhe.
The
city, throughout its history, has been conditioned by
transportation technology; it is relevant to examine whether we
can use our present technology to better advantage to alleviate
urban transport problems. It is wishful thinking to believe that
transportation technology will offer a total solution.
It
is clear that a substantial part of our urban problems can be
attributed to excessive concentration of both people and vehicles,
and the obvious remedy for overcentalisation is decentralisation.
This remedy has the advantage that it follows a trend already in
progress. Our cities are spreading out now but, for the most part,
in a haphazard and disorderly fashion. If we feel that this is the
direction we should take, then we ought to recognise and control
the progress.
The
only sensible and practical approach is the synoptic one in which
not only are all forms of transport taken into account but also
all aspects of metropolitan planning and control. Towards this
end, combined, co-ordinated and comprehensive effort is needed by
all authorities –- private, public as well as government and the
coordinated effort of different disciplines and professions.
It
will not be inexpensive or easy, but we are deluding ourselves if
we think there are any straightforward or low-cost solutions for
our cities. Public and civic apathy are not easily eliminated and
difficulties engendered by financial stringencies will always
exist. Moreover, effective means must be formed to cut the Gordian
Knot of red tape woven by multiplicity of authorities at all
levels. Courage as well as bold and vigorous action are essential
in dealing with the urban traffic problem. Above all, there is an
urgent need to get on with the job. Delay can only make the
ultimate solution more costly and complicated.
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