What went Wrong ?? : BRT Chaos at Delhi

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

1. Awarness just four days before trial run (click on links)
   
2. Traffic chaos continues on BRT corridor
3. No Implementation Phases
4. Unreliable IIT Delhi Planners (Truly they are, read the comment below article too)
5. IIT-Delhi experts may be replaced
6. IIT dept behind BRT gets funds from bus makers
7. BRT project: No govt engineer on board
8. City project a poor copy of Bogota original
   

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.

Its all about Na(No)-nsense

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 generated idle 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!!!