Why public transport system should reach breakeven much before projected

Dilemma of perceived order and actual chaos

A case of typical buzzing metropolitan city of any developing country

Ever wondered while travelling in a suffocatingly overcrowded metro or local train that whether they might have shown similar huge footfall numbers in their design and financial reports? Don’t think so. Because they can’t!!

No guideline in the world allows such high density of footfall per unit area within any public transport system, because that is insane, that is inhuman. But unfortunately its happening, because huge gap of demand and supply. And we accept it, we don’t mind, we don’t question, we don’t have option, we not only accept it, we often praise it, of course public transport is a wonderful system of mass transit, but no wonder why a huge segment of population still prefer to travel by their own car, spending money and time like anything, just to get a private breathing space inside their personal car.

When it comes to transport numbers and financial projections for mass public transport system in overpopulated cities of developing countries, it’s usually purposefully flawed. Why? There is a catch. Metro and rail coaches are designed to accommodate a fixed maximum carrying capacity based on standards and international norms. Sounds good!! Because these standards consider the acceptable optimum and comfortable footfall/ ridership density as there thumbrule with some inbuilt tolerance for unexpected occasional growth in ridership and of course while doing design and financial projections for the MRT projects, consultants take these standard thumbrules as there basis for calculation with some contingency/ margin and they model there business plan as per this acceptable norms. They can’t show realistic overcrowded scenario in their financial calculations and projections because no financing agency/ bank/ partner will accept the model which is prepared by breaking the rule- like standard acceptable ridership density. Technically and morally they can’t propose a transport system which will be operating at an efficiency of 150-200% of its design capacity even if it is an inevitable case, because its unsafe, because it’s not acceptable on many grounds, at least they can’t disclose it in public domain otherwise there would be too much of hue and cry on the subject.  So when they come up with a financial projection with specified breakeven point, that breakeven point might not be realistic, it might be far beyond the actual realistic date. In actual overcrowded scenario more footfalls should help achieve breakeven point much early than projected.

It’s high time for those metropolitan cities which are struggling to provide an adequate and morally acceptable comfort level to its people, either in its transit system or may be in domain of housing and who repeatedly fail to provide the same due to unmanageable population growth and financial constraints, should recognize their constraints, and devise an operational methodology which is more realistic and suitable to their specific need.



May be they should accept inevitable higher population density and need to revise the ridership density thumbrule/ standards, reflecting real life scenarios of the city accepting their limitations, and should use the same in design and financial calculation. Understanding its limitations and inevitability of growth, may be a high density city needs a tougher and much robust metro and rail coaches with robust inbuilt facilities, robust air-conditioning system, higher air exchange rate, temper-proof interior, with more sophisticated audiovisual information system for fast and safe passenger exchange to avoid chaos due to confusion, may be they need better imbedded security system, may be they need to be educated in the school itself how to travel and behave in an overcrowded public transport system. May be they need to be educated in the planning schools to take into account real life scenarios while learning projections, maybe planners should be taught to challenge the validity and contextuality of thumbrules, established norms, methods and age old theories rather than simply imitating and following them in decades of inertia.  We will definitely have more and more sophisticated simulation tools for better understanding of the situation and more realistic projections, but we will still need human perception and judgment for a holistic planning which is beyond those formulas.

Some thoughts on socio-economic projections can be found here in another post titled “How reliable are socio-economic future projections?” http://planningurbanoregional.blogspot.in/2011/11/how-reliable-are-socio-economic-future.html

By- Anoop Jha

How we assess and respond to architecture

Need of assessment without prejudice and unconditioned response.

Architecture and design is awfully judgmental and philosophical stream, its aesthetic and functional perception varies from person to person and it holds different meanings for users of different socio-economic and educational background.  For the evolution of architecture it is necessary to assess it from a radically different perspective, questioning every established values and prevalent formulas and benchmarks of good architecture.

Just getting overwhelmed by the magnificent interior of a high-end hotel lobby or much hyped restaurant interior or luxuriously decorated living room of an ultra-rich individual is not a real justice to the architecture and interior design in term of its design assessment and criticism. When someone come across to such wonderful places associated with big names, their immediate response of pleasant surprise in the moment they enter the building makes their design assessment biased with a touch of prejudice. Their analytical mind which is responsible for aesthetic and functional judgment, immediately surrenders to the mesmerizing ambiance of interior. Getting mesmerized by something amazing is a natural response of the human mind, but little more is expected from the architects  and designers in terms of their response to immediate environment, surrounding ambiance, assessment in terms of functionality and desired balance between aesthetics and  functionality. In that state of amazement they tend to forget the actual purpose of design, and start judging it on its face value.

Lavishness and expensiveness of architectural treatment can be enough to move an average audience or user hence one should be cautious not to get deviated or mesmerized by the shear ambiance of the environment while assessing the functionality and aesthetics of the said design. One has all the right to question the validity and contextuality of design elements and functionality of design even if it is created by established and much celebrated architects and designers. Often people seem to have been caught in the articulated concepts and animated design language while assessing and experiencing architectural spaces and design elements. Their experiences are colored by the aura of authority of established and much hyped architects and designers. Experiences are more or less fabricated and predefined in most of the cases.

One feels that there should be freedom of assessment. There is a need, not only to challenge and break free of established design values but to perceive the design from a clear vision which is beyond the past experiences, which is neither opaque by any prejudice nor conditioned by any socio-economic or regional background of the observer. An assessment based on complete firsthand experience might be a better and sensible way to judge the design.

By Anoop Jha

Top 150 Books of Architecture

 

More coming....

Note: These Books are randomly chosen from an online digital database and has been arranged / composed randomly as well. These ranking are solely as per general judgment of blog author based on visual graphic appeal of book and title catchwords and these ranking does not represent any ranking in literary,  technical or any other sense.  This is only an effort to provide interested users and book lovers, a collection of relevant books and literature at one consolidated place for their ready reference. Further details of individual books are linked to the images. This note is in addition to the disclaimer section of this blog.