This blog is to discuss transportation related, ideas and issues. I love this field and feel it is the closest one to humans as it affects our day today life. Since I am pursuing a career in the same field, this is a place where i feel my passion for writing something on it should start.....
Disclaimer:
I have written mostly in layman language if at all something technical gets into it, please excuse me or report me. Happy reading and commenting :)
NEW DELHI: Never mind Delhi's harrowing experience. India is pressing ahead with the bus rapid transport system (BRTS) - which entails dedicated lanes for high capacity, low floor buses - in at least nine other cities. "Promoting effective public transportation facility is emerging as a major challenge. BRTS is a crucial tool to provide smooth and affordable facility to the commuters. We are keen to have more BRTS projects," M. Ramachandran, urban development secretary, said.
At present, India's urban development ministry is helping BRTS projects in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat - three important cities of Gujarat - while Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh are also implementing them.The other cities where BRTS projects are coming up are Pune in Maharashtra, Jaipur in Rajasthan, and Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. The total estimated cost of all the nine projects is Rs.33 billion.
"The Delhi experience led to a thorough revision of other projects. It is being smoothly implemented now," said Ramachandran. When BRTS was introduced in the national capital in April-May this year, there was chaos on the roads and long traffic jams as people were not aware of the right lanes, traffic lights did not work, bus stands were found to be in wrong places among other things.
But with some modifications, the authorities say, the project is running smoothly along a 5.6 km-stretch in the city. However, it has not been extended to other parts after the controversy. Even today many residents say they avoid the BRTS route. "BRTS is globally recognised as one of the most cost effective solutions for providing high quality public transport service in urban areas," Ramachandran said.
The BRTS is operational in the world's major cities like Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Bogotá, Santiago, Lima, and also Beijing, Taipei and Hanoi, where it has proved a hit with the masses. BRTS projects in the nine Indian cities, apart from Delhi, are being financially helped by the federal government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), an important government scheme aimed at integrated development of urban infrastructure.
"Though the state governments are free to have their own BRTS projects, the union government will extend financial support to such projects as stipulated under JNNURM," Ramachandran said.
With transport services likely to pose a major challenge in India - where the urban population is officially being projected at 538 million by 2021, marked by 51 cities with million plus population - BRTS is one of the systems the authorities are banking on.
"There are other modes of public transport being put in place as well. There are already metro projects in Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai. Still, we hope to get more BRTS projects for other major cities," said Ramachandran.
Good public transport can reverse the trend of opting for personal vehicles. Delhi alone has over 5.2 million vehicles.
"It will be a great achievement indeed if we have lesser number of private vehicles on roads in a city as large as Delhi or for that matter any other big city. A satisfying public transportation system is the only way out," agreed Ramachandran.
Manoj Aggarwal, head of transport, Delhi Integrated Multimodal Transit System, which is the implementing agency for BRTS here, said: "Advance and effective planning for better urban transportation is the need of the hour."
"As urbanisation is taking place so fast, fine-tuned modes of urban public transportation have to be put in place. BRTS is one of them," said Aggarwal.
and now as per habit I proceed with News TOI 27th May 2008 and after that you can read my thoughts on same.
NEW DELHI: Alarmed by the growing number of accidents on the BRT corridor between Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand, the transport department has decided to shut down the corridor dedicated to bus movement between 11 pm to 5 am. This is likely to come into effect from Tuesday night. "It was seen that most of the accidents have happened during the night or early morning. Many of these accidents happen because pedestrians and cars take liberties as there are not too many buses plying at night and then get. As a precautionary measure, we have decided to close the bus lane at night—both to pedestrians and vehicles. By closing the lane, chances of pedestrians or cars trying to get into the corridor and suddenly getting hit by a bus can be averted," senior transport department officials added. Transport minister Haroon Yusuf has also directed the transport department once again to carry out training programmes for bus drivers plying on this route to sensitise them. "An awareness campaign for commuters and pedestrians using the route has also been proposed," Yusuf added. In the last one week three people lost their lives to accidents in the BRT corridor. With the recent spate of accidents, the transport department and the government are now having second thoughts about the much hyped Pilot-B project, spanning from Moolchand flyover to Delhi Gate. The Pilot-B project, made public on May 6, will follow a different design. In the new project, the bus lane will be shifted to the left instead of the centre and there will be three lanes for cars. It is proposed that there will be no medians dividing the lanes. The bus lane will be painted a different colour to create a corridor for the buses. Enforcement by the traffic police is to ensure that the cars don’t run into the lane. According to a recent assessment by the transport department, however, a bus corridor on the left could be problematic as there are as many as 80 turnings if both sides of the road on the eight-kilometre between Moolchand flyover and Delhi Gate are taken into account. A large number of vehicles on that route might want to take those turns, making it impossible to maintain a free-flowing bus lane. In an effort to sort out problems on the Pilot-B corridor, the transport department will focus on completing the pedestrian tracks and cycle tracks and widen the road over the next three to four months. The left lane execution on Pilot-B will only begin after that. A senior transport department official said that the Pilot-B project was " going to be an experiment," indicating that there are no guarantees of success.
---------------Long Huh???? sorry for keeping u waiting--- so what do u think but why should u think I am there to think and write and then u comment :D...so in last episode u saw how meticulously planned :P BRT is claiming lives too, do i need to recommend more planning and investigations before a project is implemented on city. I am sure there was no simulations (i say) or biased simulations (experts say) done by planners with literally only talking capabilities and no technical ones. (no offence intended but i cant resist too if Shahrukh can be Aamir's doggy name y not i can name my pets on something)
Post Mortem:
In the new project, the bus lane will be shifted to the left instead of the centre and there will be three lanes for cars. It is proposed that there will be no medians dividing the lanes. The bus lane will be painted a different colour to create a corridor for the buses.
Ohh so they thot that bus lanes should be in center and bust stops on extreme left wow a nice idea and now they realize that NO !!! it should be all in left side since the bus stop can't be in center. Lovely did u get that a bus was moving in center lane and then when bus stop comes it has to go extreme left to bust stop. So what is maneuvering, can u assume a speeding bus in center all of sudden takes left in front of ur vehicle. Nice planning though
According to a recent assessment by the transport department, however, a bus corridor on the left could be problematic as there are as many as 80 turnings if both sides of the road on the eight-kilometre between Moolchand flyover and Delhi Gate are taken into account. A large number of vehicles on that route might want to take those turns, making it impossible to maintain a free-flowing bus lane
80 turnings and you simulated them. I cant believe if u had i am sure you would have seen the chaos created by you . Ok let me give some brain to these dumbos problem I suggest that their is something called Bus priority at signals so technically two instruments must be placed few meters away from the signal on bus lane and they should detect the bus (loop detectors) . The bus once moving on lane is detected the signal should give a priority to bus and stop all other vehicles and similarly if the green time (time when its green signal yaar :) ) for signals and queue length of other traffic is more then give a longer duration and u can stop the bus . This has been done in one of mine and my friends work a paper : "Simulating bus priority system for an urban corridor in Mumbai City. " Jigesh N Bhavsar, Sushant Sharma and S.L Dhingra, in Proc. 11th World Conference on Transportation Research 2007, University of California, Berkeley, USA, June. 2007. (Presented at WCTR -2007, Berkeley USA ). [THIS IS NOT AT ALL FOR MY PUBLICITY :)]. We did it using VISSIM simulation tool for traffic and it gave pretty good results and we validated it at Borivali Junction at Bombay. I know its practically a little difficult but better than this kind of chaos.
In an effort to sort out problems on the Pilot-B corridor, the transport department will focus on completing the pedestrian tracks and cycle tracks and widen the road over the next three to four months.
So now they understand who is important and who bears the brunt of all chaos. Public dear general public and that too poor ones who have to either walk or cycle and whose life is not costlier for planners.
A senior transport department official said that the Pilot-B project was " going to be an experiment," indicating that there are no guarantees of success.
Please ask your "senior transport planner" to put a layman on work common sense is mightier than too educated brain. No dont jump on conclusion as fast and consider that too much of education ruins everything infact it opens the doors which u wont have seen without depth of knowledge.
But one thing of which I am pretty unsure that if they can't guarantee success why are they "Experts" .
Again this time too I will be targeting the news...Please read the link below for people who haven't heard of the word Vāstu Śāstra, also spelled Vaastu Shastra(Sanskrit vāstu "site, building, house" and śāstra "treatise, instruction") is one of the traditional Hindu canons of town planning and architecture. Vaastu Shastra deals with various aspects of designing and building living environments that are in harmony with the physical and metaphysical forces.
NAGPUR: In an effort to bring down accidents in the rural parts of the district, the Nagpur rural police are even experimenting with Vastu Shastra, to reduce the 'negative energy' in accident prone zones. Vastu pyramids have reportedly been installed at 12 such places across the district to improve 'vibes'. The cops are monitoring the results to find out more about this phenomenon. As an immediate effect, though, cops asay no accidents have taken place in these accident-prone spots in the past six months!
Really i ask myself , its bad vibes and not people to be blamed for accidents whether the road geometric designer or builder or drivers or pedestrians. Well my cool view is its not the bad vibes in rural areas its unawareness and illiteracy...
Recently there have been a lot of connectivity due to large scale expansion of interstate or national highways most of them run through the villages, So what has happened is the villagers who before used to see a few truck or cars plying on perceived speeds are now witnessing a large number of similar vehicles being driven rashly or at higher speeds.
The experiences are as old as the recent one you go through, and they haven't gone through any sunce 70's of India, owing to slow improvement in highways. So believing their own judgments they try to cross the highways mostly on slow moving tractors or animal driven carts (yes still available), cycles, or as pedestrians and ...........well same applies for straying animals didn't u see many lying in post mortem positions on highways.
A huge number of highways cross villages and rural area in Indian and thus has left a major number of increase in road accident fatalities. Its mostly either the driver losing control or driving rashly or non sober driving or the poor villagers believing their old instincts.
Also recently i have experienced the road geometrics of these newly and fairly fast constructed highways are not at par, If u drive at permissible speed limits and try to traverse a curve at that you are certainly bound to reduce the speed or otherwise leave the road orbit at your speed turning to escape velocity. In fact in geometrics of roads there is always a study done for sight distance and radius of curvature of roads and the maximum speed which is kept for the roads is the one for which curves are also designed for, this is done for comfort of drivers. Since these geometrics are rarely followed by state and central highway construction contractors and builders most of the accident prone or so called bad vibe places are the one lacking these proper geometrics. ( pretty understandable)
So how is vaastu improving that , I hardly believe its improving anything it must be those pyramids getting attraction of drivers rather than normally kept warning signages or cones and the government framing a policy and results to show to public that it has done something that has improved the condition. Frankly to be very honest would have been to teach villagers and prevent the intrusion of straying animals on highways and some over speeding checks to solve it all...N if u still believe the vaastu reduces accidents then ask the straying animals who are losing same number of friends before as they are today.
Before I start writing have a look on these pictures published in Times of Indian on 22nd April 2008, On a eventful day of chaos by BRT first day operation in Delhi.
If you are lay man and want to know what's BRT its Bus Rapid Transit, yes you thought exactly right and nothing technical about it, its just a common sense, so in this a separate exclusive bus lane is kept for public buses (mostly) or private or chartered too (sometimes). Some successful history of this common sense/man idea is in Bogota city, first laid by Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, and the visionary leader behind Bogota's Transmilenio BRT system. I have heard Enrique giving a live talk at Mumbai. He talked about how it can be implemented in India and Mumbai too. He has been propagating the theory of such BRT throughout the world and yes he had been successful also. Well in India, as I say dumb brain rules (not planners, architects, doctors, scientist and common man). Politicians got fairly impressed by the idea and as BRT is fairly cheap compared to alternative of rail and second it can serve larger number of public meaning number of votes for government. And so everywhere like metro rail demand all the city mayors started crying for BRTs also whether Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Surat etc.
Delhi took this ambitious plan in hands and the pilot run of BRT is historic event for Transportation in India. What happened at Delhi was a mere chaos on implementation without proper study of consequences. In theory the traffic is like a fluid following through channels called road. Now if u want to reserve some part or block you have to understand the simple chaos theory that will prevail . (I hope u know about chaos theory which says a simple fluttering of wing by butterfly can cause a Tornado somewhere also known as "Butterfly Effect"). Anyways it doesn't apply here but partially Yes it did at least Tornado came.
Delhi is one of the city which now has one of most well supported and wide road infrastructure and signal systems. It has state of the art (but badly functioning) SCOOT system i.e optimised signals :P . Quite wide roads adds pleasure to driving experice in Delhi making private vehicles a better option. This status conscious city has average occupancy of car as 1 person per car in 70% of the cars. So why BRT ?
Well the problem was Monster or Killer Blueline buses which i believe must be taking one life everyday, thanks to attitude of the drivers of these buses and the well behaved pedestrians as you can see in images. So government decided to put an end to it replace with BRT since roads had started getting choked given more private vehicle usage.
BRT pilot run would have worked well if proper information dissemination and phase wise implementation had been done. But no government had no time to prove its mettle so it did. So What went Wrong ?? (Hey its the title of my autobiography too :D)
Click on links below to read what newspaper suggested
But there is a positivity associated here, I could find a positive point when a person who went through this chaos said that the route on which he used to drive for 30 minutes , has turned to 1hour 30minutes and if he uses the BRT it will take only 15 minutes for him and thats the key and this was the aim of chief minister of Delhi but she forgot that human instincts are against the change , most of the human race likes a comfortable non challengin and change less life. So what happened on pilto runs of BRT was mere expected, the extent it happened was what a planners should have suggested her and if they did she should have believed and planned a gentle transmigration (shift) of commuters form one mode (car) to other (Bus). The most suffering are the school going kids and their parents as they are now not dropped at home but at bus stops , and it possibly be dangerous as they have to cross streets and all to reach home. As mayor of Bogota said before planning a city think about three most respectable entities that are Old People, children and handicapped. So did any planner thought about them? BRT has been fairly unsuccesful at Pune as per last general people opinion and I believe thats more important then statistcis shown by consultancy. I clearly suggest that BRT is a nice option but that depends on case to case basis , as i say similar lines for dealing with girls too ;) .
So what went wrong was not the good intention, its poor implementation , I know this chaos will surely be short lived but lessons learnt will be much deeper for poor/ biased planners and politicians in India.
Well the big bang theory says world is expanding my theory says its shrinking ..we are all moving toward from deci centi micro to nano world....n that tells me Japanese people should be most surviving in near future..:P..nyways.. Most of the advanced stage is research is about nanoparticles, nanomaterial, nanoelectronics and the why the Tata's should stay behind they bought it to a level of car where it is called Nano!!! well done, Tata's of course are the one who have opened the eyes of the world by making India's first indigeniously built (well how much indigenous all research was carried out at Italy's Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering) cheapest car. When Ratan Tata (CEO of TATA company) opened about his dream in 2001 to making it a reality 2008 and so has India n its states, villages, towns and cities. How ???? Well now the states and villages are better connected (thanks to all Road expansion schemes, GoldenQuadrilateral , NE and SW corridor, PMGSY ) but towns and cities are flooded with traffic (thanks to Easy Loans, cheap cars, false standards in society and poor or overcrowded public transport) . So what will happen if u add such a cheap car in a segment where the car costs Rupees 1lakh (approximately US $2500, GBP 1277, or € 1700) the previous cheapes car was 2.5 times more. I wil say a disaster will hit the cities n towns, since people have already started wooing about such a car, the views are now atleast three member can have a car for the price of one and utility of zero. Its no more a joke people especially in Indian society have a tendency to buy cars more for social status n society standards then for need and proper utilty. Once such a car hits the roads there is going to be chaos , of course we will see reduced number in usage of auto richshaws (or three wheeler) popular mode of transport in India , we will see a huge increase in number of Nanos plying or choking the routes. In addition although the car has been able to deliver the emission standards but what about the total emissions at the end you are going to multiply by the number of Nanos on road and they also when they are idle state (most CO is generatedidle state) . The benefits of Nano are also exceptionally thinkable as the villagers will be happy to see and use such things on their newly built and non congetsted roads. They will be happy to commute and reach out to the luxury of car for their non business and business purposes, even interstate small distance commuters will also benefit and flourish. Villagers will be happy to see their out reach becoming larger. Ofcourse it will be a good transformation. Of all the nanos built till today after cell phone this one which will make them more prosperous. Ofcourse the dream Tata's saw was positive and yes they accomplished it very beautifully but i feel, if cities and town can survive, Not to believe in their dream then its a complete achievement ...or Tata's can think of providing Nano Roads in cities or towns which can be exclusively for their Nano - sense . well what i learnt out of this whole ..You should dream and make your dream come true ...but please hurry till it turns to a nonsense!!!
