The Comprehensive Mobility Plan recommended that the PMPML fleet should be augmented by 1,750 buses at a cost of Rs875 crore between 2008 and 2010.
Even as the ruling Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress are all set to approve the proposed 14.92 km Vanaz-Ramwadi elevated metro rail project estimated to cost Rs1,948 crore, the 2008 Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) prepared for the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has not been treated with the same urgency.
Submitted to the PMC in July 2008 by consultants Wilbur Smith Associates and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Service Limited (IL&FS), the plan, which proposes a comprehensive transportation system for Pune, is under consideration of the elected representatives.
A committee of corporators was appointed last November to study it and the report has been awaiting approval from the general body (GB) of the civic body.
The CMP stressed on augmentation of the existing bus fleet and implementation of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) to address the traffic problems in the city.
It clearly stated that bus augmentation and BRT can together increase the share of public transport to 60% in the city.
True to its title, the CMP has taken a comprehensive view of the traffic and transportation requirements of Pune and has suggested many solutions like metro, monorail, outer ring road, construction of flyovers and bridges, truck terminals, pedestrian subways and footpaths.
At the same time, it has given very high importance to bus augmentation and BRT which have remained neglected by the ruling NCP-Congress politicians.
The CMP recommended that before taking up solutions like the elevated and underground metro rail, the PMC must first complete the bus augmentation and BRT.
The order of priority suggested by the CMP included PMPML augmentation, BRT implantation, construction of ring roads and introduction of high capacity system like metro or monorail.
“One of the easiest and quicker ways of increasing the public transport trips is by bus fleet augmentation. Before any serious public transport corridor plan is proposed, it is important to utilise and upgrade the existing bus-based mixed traffic transport. As part of this scenario, PMPML will be required to increase the existing bus fleet with most likely additional routes as well,” the report said.
It has noted that if enough buses are added to the PMPML fleet, then the public transport modal share would increase from a ‘Do Nothing’ level of 10% to 18% under this scenario.
In addition to the fleet augmentation, if the BRTS is integrated into the transport system, then the public transport share would
increase to 60%. The report notes that if bus fleet augmentation is achieved, then the average network speed of traffic would increase by 50% from 10 km per hour to 15 km per hour. After adoption of the BRTS, the average speed would jump to 28 km per hour.
The CMP recommended that the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) fleet should be augmented by 1,750 buses at a cost of Rs875 crore between 2008 and 2010. At the same time, the BRT project should be implemented on a 120km route at an investment of Rs1,440 crore.
President of Nagrik Chetana Manch Maj Gen (retd) SCN Jatar, who had participated in the consultation for the CMP report, told DNA that the highest priority needs to be given to improving the PMPML capacity to solve the traffic problems of the city. The
bus strength should be increased to 50 buses per lakh population, he said.
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