Ahmedabad traffic to lose a lane, but gain huge leeway

OP Agarwal

Growth in population leads to an increase in the number of two- and four-wheelers in a city. There are two ways of controlling such growing traffic. One ways is by building more and more roads and widening the existing roads.

However, the lack of vacant land for building new roads and widening existing ones amount to a great problem for civic authorities.

Another way is by diverting more and more people to public means of transport. To convince people to use public transport, a good transport service is essential. The different forms of public transport are the metro rail, trams, monorails, bus rapid transit service and normal bus transport, to name a few.

A city should select a form of public transport on the basis of the cost of the project as well as the traffic needs. A metro rail is one of the best options when it comes to public transport. However, it may not be the best option for smaller cities. The construction of an elevated metro rail costs between Rs150 crore and Rs170 crore per kilometre, while that of an underground metro rail is around Rs400 crore per kilometre.

A metro rail can ferry around 80,000 passengers per hour in a single direction. But, for such an expensive project, a city needs to have that much traffic.

Cities like Mumbai and Delhi can afford such a project as they have certain routes that have such heavy traffic. For Ahmedabad and Bangalore, which are spread out, a bus rapid transit service (BRTS) is the most suitable mode of public transport. A BRTS costs only one-tenth of the metro rail - between Rs15 crore and Rs17 crore per kilometre. Moreover, it can ferry around 20,000 passengers per hour in one direction.

The BRTS is not only about engineering implementation, but also about managing people. One of its disadvantages is opposition from the influential classes. As the BRTS takes away one lane from them, they feel uncomfortable and create a ruckus over it.

However, they should understand that that one lane taken away from the road amounts to taking public transport buses off the road too, which will help them.

The best thing about the Ahmedabad Janmarg Ltd is that it did not force people, but won their hearts right from the first BRTS workshop in the city. Moreover, many people have used the BRTS in the trial runs, which is an encouraging sign.

The interiors and look of the buses are plus points of the BRTS project in Ahmedabad. The specially designed seats are easy to wash while the high-floor buses will have a greater capacity than low-floor ones.

The driver, or rather bus operators, are well-trained and align the buses at the stations in the right manner, which is important when high-floor buses are concerned. The colour combination of the buses soothes the eyes and creates a nice feeling for the passengers. Furthermore, the implementation of ITS, which is in the pipeline, will add to the comfort of the passengers.

Chief executive officer, IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd