Compulsory flexi hour provision for a smooth and sober city transit

City transit infrastructure without institutional control and public policy in not going to work!

Traffic Calming
Strategies 

In a buzzing city of developing countries where people are rushing everyday to reach their regular destinations like offices, institutions etc., desperately trying to reach before cut-off times assigned by the administration of these respective organizations, traffic chaos is bound to happen leading to traffic law violation, travel anxiety, road rage, minor or major accidents etc. By applying a cut off time for reaching work place, institutions etc. people are forced to become ignorant to each other’s convenient and safety while on road, because each one of them has something at stake, their job, their carrier, their salary, marks, etc. People are in hurry because if they won’t reach office or institutions before time they will be considered undisciplined employee, students and so on, they will be bullied and can be subjected to monetary penalty and disciplinary actions. No one wants to go through that pain.

Organizational independence in a city environment is apparently a productive model, but at times leads to chaos. In lack of public stake in private organizations in those policy levels which are likely to affect city functionality, many private institutions tend to have monopolistic and dictatorship approach at their internal policy level, like assigning cutoff time to reach work place leading to city transport problems. City governing institutions have to have some control or say over those functional elements of city wide organizations, primarily for offices and other work places, which directly affect the transit health of a city. Excluding the critical and lifeline works, there has to be a city wide blanket flexible timing system for work places, which provision should be made compulsory for a sober and responsible transit behavior of any city.

Flexible timing strategies might include a reasonable buffer time to reach work place, possibility to occasionally work from home, different office timing for different zones of city, etc. based on rigorous analysis of transit data pattern and land use analysis. Public institutions will have to work hand in hand with private organization, stakeholders and communities for this purpose. Cities and organization also need to increasingly focus their policies towards target oriented work rather than judging work done by the time spent at work place. More the flexibility provided at anchor destinations within city, smoother will be the traffic and this is not possible without the timely and sensible planning intervention at functional level of city wide organizations and transport system.  

By : Anoop Jha

Seems they love to waste fuel

By - Anoop Jha

Road junctions need smarter user interactive signal system..

And people need education!! When they know it’s going to be at least 3 to 6 minutes wait at road junction of their busy city and when it’s not extreme summer then why don’t they turn off the engine of their car for a while? This little act of saving petrol or diesel might not save them a lot of money today but if counted over a year the sum of this effort might add few thousand additional bucks in their bank balance. Imagine the gallons of fuel saved over the period by the collective efforts of citizens in a city.

Let’s dig into the psychology of car owners and possible reasons to waste the fuel at road junctions which could have been avoided. Is it because they are ultra rich people and don’t mind burning some fuel at junction, is it that car owners never thought about this as an option, is it that they are so much in hurry and preoccupied that they don’t want to think about it, is it that they want to avoid those beggars and casual vendors selling toys at junctions hence depending on air-conditioning system of car rather than opening window for few moments, is it that there is no one to educate them about how much fuel can be saved over the year by such practices, does it even really save some fuel or just a vague assumption? May be, may be not? But may be traffic signal itself has to play an important role in this regard.


[Handpicked Books]

 

Current traffic signals are not smart enough to cope with the growing vehicle population and complexity. Need some proof? It can’t be called smart if signals are out of sight for majority of vehicles of quarter mile long queue. It can’t be smart if one doesn’t really know that how long they have to wait which is the case for majority of junctions. It can’t be smart if traffic signals of adjacent road junctions are not synchronized with each other for most efficiency, and it they are not flexible enough to adjust its signal timing as per fluctuating traffic volume at different hours of the day. It can’t be smart if it fails to convince or persuade people to follow the rule or to remind them the cost to neglecting the traffic rules.

Smart signals need to communicate with commuters in every possible way. They have to be more informative, strategically placed, built on flexible software platform, logic based traffic signals which should appear to have presence of mind, and they should be integrated with the installed cameras to gather information, derive inferences and act accordingly. They should be able to convey to commuters, what is the best time to turn off and on the vehicle engine for maximum fuel efficiency on a junction. What about an intricate pattern of parking size grid marked on roads approaching junction, assigning a dedicated waiting space for vehicles for maximum efficiency, safety and visibility? And so on!!

We plan new transportation systems, but with old tools!! We need to sharpen the old tools to make than smarter and to make the whole system efficient. 

Tracking morphological changes and development dynamics of a City

By - Anoop Jha

Reinventing landscape in the heart of Delhi – A case of Central Park, Connaught Place

Lively and green Central Park of Connaught Place is situated right in the of heart of Delhi, enveloped by colonial architecture and streets radiating from its centre. Above, it’s a ground for recreation, occasional festivals and celebration and below its transit hub with massive underground network of metro rail system.

Visible changes in Central Park character

This park has gone through several physical changes, adopted new landscape strategies to adjust to the social and infrastructural needs of time, as apparent from the changing views of satellite images captured at different time of last decade. Some of these landscape changes can be due to emergence of underground metro system and in view of recent Common Wealth Game as part of city revitalization projects. Though changes in any city are not mush apparent as experienced in day to day life, but these changes can be easily noticeable if observed for a long span of time.

Study of changing morphology and understanding the built dynamics of any city or part of it can be a very interesting subject as well as very valuable input for planners to project and decide the course of future development of that city. It can also enrich the knowledge of planners and will helps understand the nature, behavior and temperament of city. Fortunately there are many tools and much data is available for the study in this direction and will be available more abundantly in the future. May be its time to review and revise the planning course structures as well in the light of emerging technologies and data inflow which was not the case few years back. 

Need for new strategic intervention to reduce transport accident and casualties

By – Anoop Jha

They need to understand the difference between luxury and necessity!!

Who do you think should feel responsible for those accidents in fog-ridden winter days, Is it fault of drivers, is the fog itself to blame, is it casual traffic monitoring and operation, is it lack of proper signage at critical road locations, is it implementation loophole or is it unequipped vehicle which makes it vulnerable as sitting duck in the low visibility of fog? Though each of these components are crucial in safe and efficient transportation there are some easy fix to curb the traffic accident which transport governing agencies either have failed to understand or have ignored them.  They have failed to understand the difference in the luxury and necessity.  They have also failed to understand the priority in transport planning and management. 

Intervention at production & supply level

Take for example a very small component of transport domain called “vehicle fog light”.  Most of us will agree that fog light of car can be a life saving component in winters, it can help avoid a majority of accidents which occurs on the roads across the India every year though majority of cars and other vehicle miss this vital component. If you think you are a smart guy just because you have already installed fog light in your car, you are wrong. You are not safe till every vehicle on road has this fog light installed, and there is no doubt if every vehicle on road would be equipped with fog-light it will drastically reduce the winter road accident rates. But question is though it sounds good to have fog light in every car on road how would you make that happen? Do you think a stringent rule or policy will help? May be stronger implementation or monitoring? A higher penalty may be? Though it might work in certain pockets, but it will certainly not work throughout the country. Commuters have and will always find a way to avoid these traffic rules no matter it’s for their own safety. They will wait every foggy year to pass thinking that its matter of few days and they will get fog light installed next winter unaware that these few days which they are purposefully ignoring can be vital for their survival and well being of others on road.

What about those lives lost on road due to lack of life saving devices and equipments which should be part and parcel of every car including lowest segment cars,  though it was absent at the time of accident which would have saved those precious lives otherwise, just because government and lobby of car manufacturers thought that these are luxury items and this choice should be left at the will of  end users who are either totally unaware of these vital life saving devices and equipments or they already  have other immediate financial priorities which makes is easy to forget the relevance of it.

Here, the definition of luxury and necessity is not clear. What government thinks as a luxury item like fog light and life saving car devices is actually necessity to curb the road accident and to save life.  If government will leave these vital choices at the consumer end or at the will of end user, they will certainly fail to implement it across the system or proposed region due to sheer number of users. Though it is much easier for government to control and implement policies at the manufacturer or service providers end, like car manufacturers and suppliers.  How can a government or transport regulatory body allow a single car without equipped with these life saving devices, extreme weather lighting like fog-light, emergency communication devices, first aid kits, etc. to enter into the country or market? 


All that a government or transport regulatory body has to do is to add a simple rule into the rule book of car and vehicle trade at manufacturer’s end that “No manufacturer will be allowed to launch any car or vehicle model of any segment in market without these life saving devices”. If these devices are mandatory part of the car package and capital cost consumer will definitely buy them but if left to their choice majority of them will definitely won’t care to install them. Some kind of acceptable pricing arrangements can always be done, but there should not be any compromise on quality of product which can prove vital for life.Old transport strategies need to be reviewed time to time as well as new and innovative strategies need to be formulated for sustainable urban transport and for a safer future.  

60th National Town and Country Planners Congress

THEME

Planning and Development 2025: Challenges and Reforms

LOCATION

6^th -  8^th January, 2012

Senate Bhavan, University of Mysore,

Manasgangotri, Mysore -570006

ORGANIZERS

Institute of Town Planners, India

4A, ring Road, I.P. Estate, New Delhi – 110002

PROGRAMME SCHEDULE

FURTHER DETAILS: http://www.itpi.org.in/pdfs/Brochure.pdf

SOURCE - ITPI

Conference cum Exhibition on Sustainable Mobility -2011

4th ANNUAL URBAN MOBILITY CONFERENCE CUM EXHIBITION-2011 AND SIXTH REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT (EST) FORUM IN ASI

Programme

Conference cum Exhibition on Sustainable Mobility

Organized by

Ministry of Urban Development

Government of India

Insititute of Urban Transport (IUT)           

United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD)              

World Health Organization (WHO)

Ministry of the Environment,

Government of Japan

VENUE: The Manekshaw Centre, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi-110070, India

3rd to 6th December 2011

New Delhi

PROVISIONAL CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Conference Chair: Prof. Saugata Roy, Hon’ble Minister of State (Urban Development), Government of India

Source: iutindia.org