Traffic management is the need of the hour
Given all the high talk that all of us in this nation have in our daily lives now about our cities crashing down to traffic snarls, I had been looking for information on traffic engineering and management that probably might be in some kind of an application in any of our metros.
I found very little to none of what is practically been implemented in our nation. Not sure why such an important aspect has been neglected so far but it is high time that the traffic police and the urban transport development authorities in conjunction with the municipal corporations and research institutes actually put into place a very strict traffic management system in at least one Metro II city to be able to monitor and study the impact of it on the overall change in the quality of life of the city.
The key glaring loopholes that I see in the way traffic flows in the cities today are. I am putting them in no particular order but an order can be arrived at once all aspects are highlighted and their relationship established.
a. Cops have a tarnished image amongst the public and hence they are not taken seriously in any of their roles.
b. Cops are not aware of their duty as a traffic manager which adds to the above point - distrust amongst the public about their positive contribution
c. Municipal corporations in general are not aware of the implications of technical traffic management solutions.
d. The general public is all very much governed by our own ease of life - we are besottedwith the illogical thought process that we make our own way and wedon't care about any systematic approach. As a result 6 billion people have their individual ways of thinking and no one is united to make sure that there is a systematic way to approach the traffic problem.
e. Vote banks count and will continue to do so till the 'educated intelligentsia' don't come together in a rare move of solidarity and remain united.
In my own locality, just because some slum colonies are the vote bank for a specific party, they influenced the local corporator to install a traffic signal at a junction where their colonies lie.
This signal has no relevance at all to the traffic that flows through the now turned main road, because within a 2 km stretch, this is the 6th signal, lying between a stretch of 2 signals 800 mt. apart.
The traffic is anyways blocked at the either end of the stretch due to the end signals, now the middle signal also adds to the blockage on the road, with a complete traffic standstill at almost all times of the day.
So here we are in a 'developing forever' nation that there is no understanding of traffic signal utility, there is no logic to traffic signal installation and absolutely no knowledge about traffic and it's regulation and management.
In Mumbai, some chappie from the US who left his job there and came back to India has started some private traffic management consultation. There is no news about this individual as to how he is helping these municipal goons except for one article a blue moon ago in some newspaper.
I still wonder whether the world bank development monies are at all getting utilized in the manner envisaged by someone who had the overall public good in mind, or they are getting leaked out in to the hands of idiots who are making their own sons and daughters study in plush places and get plush positions in the Indian political game arena.
What is needed is a very focused and dedicated effort - with no political interference - to clean up this traffic mess by establishing a Traffic Regultory Authority for every Metro region (TRAM) which should only focus on
1 redrawing the entire city road map from scratch using available tools/Google Maps if possible;
2 identifying the bottleneck areas and put a plan in place to move the business areas in those locations by identifying suitable shopping centers in close proximity; if none found, the business should be coerced because the short term businessman gratification should never be compromised with long term ease of traffic management;
today businesses which are in the path of a developmental projects blackmail the government and try to get financial and political mileage out which should be totally discouraged.
It is these same people tomorrow who will raise a finger at the municipal council and corporators if their city and locality is under rain water floods or there is a sewer problem; so they need to be coerced into accepting the city development plan above their own selfish needs
As it is, the order of priority for every individual is nation first, so for the nation, if some soldiers are willing to bet their lives, these businesses can do so much to move their stuff out of development projects way
3 redrawing the urban plan from the roads perspective which I am sure is a part of it but never implemented due to different pressures; this plan should be vhetted by experts from internation traffic management areas
4 Educating programs to all the citizens on the benefits of following proper signal laws and increasing the trust factor in the traffic cops' performance and contribution
5 Last but not the least, rope in the automakers of the world to provide suitable vehicular designs which actually help the traffic problems by replacing pressure horns with electronic ones... or some such measures which will prevent people from misusing their vehicles and actually reduce traffic impact
I found very little to none of what is practically been implemented in our nation. Not sure why such an important aspect has been neglected so far but it is high time that the traffic police and the urban transport development authorities in conjunction with the municipal corporations and research institutes actually put into place a very strict traffic management system in at least one Metro II city to be able to monitor and study the impact of it on the overall change in the quality of life of the city.
The key glaring loopholes that I see in the way traffic flows in the cities today are. I am putting them in no particular order but an order can be arrived at once all aspects are highlighted and their relationship established.
a. Cops have a tarnished image amongst the public and hence they are not taken seriously in any of their roles.
b. Cops are not aware of their duty as a traffic manager which adds to the above point - distrust amongst the public about their positive contribution
c. Municipal corporations in general are not aware of the implications of technical traffic management solutions.
d. The general public is all very much governed by our own ease of life - we are besottedwith the illogical thought process that we make our own way and wedon't care about any systematic approach. As a result 6 billion people have their individual ways of thinking and no one is united to make sure that there is a systematic way to approach the traffic problem.
e. Vote banks count and will continue to do so till the 'educated intelligentsia' don't come together in a rare move of solidarity and remain united.
In my own locality, just because some slum colonies are the vote bank for a specific party, they influenced the local corporator to install a traffic signal at a junction where their colonies lie.
This signal has no relevance at all to the traffic that flows through the now turned main road, because within a 2 km stretch, this is the 6th signal, lying between a stretch of 2 signals 800 mt. apart.
The traffic is anyways blocked at the either end of the stretch due to the end signals, now the middle signal also adds to the blockage on the road, with a complete traffic standstill at almost all times of the day.
So here we are in a 'developing forever' nation that there is no understanding of traffic signal utility, there is no logic to traffic signal installation and absolutely no knowledge about traffic and it's regulation and management.
In Mumbai, some chappie from the US who left his job there and came back to India has started some private traffic management consultation. There is no news about this individual as to how he is helping these municipal goons except for one article a blue moon ago in some newspaper.
I still wonder whether the world bank development monies are at all getting utilized in the manner envisaged by someone who had the overall public good in mind, or they are getting leaked out in to the hands of idiots who are making their own sons and daughters study in plush places and get plush positions in the Indian political game arena.
What is needed is a very focused and dedicated effort - with no political interference - to clean up this traffic mess by establishing a Traffic Regultory Authority for every Metro region (TRAM) which should only focus on
1 redrawing the entire city road map from scratch using available tools/Google Maps if possible;
2 identifying the bottleneck areas and put a plan in place to move the business areas in those locations by identifying suitable shopping centers in close proximity; if none found, the business should be coerced because the short term businessman gratification should never be compromised with long term ease of traffic management;
today businesses which are in the path of a developmental projects blackmail the government and try to get financial and political mileage out which should be totally discouraged.
It is these same people tomorrow who will raise a finger at the municipal council and corporators if their city and locality is under rain water floods or there is a sewer problem; so they need to be coerced into accepting the city development plan above their own selfish needs
As it is, the order of priority for every individual is nation first, so for the nation, if some soldiers are willing to bet their lives, these businesses can do so much to move their stuff out of development projects way
3 redrawing the urban plan from the roads perspective which I am sure is a part of it but never implemented due to different pressures; this plan should be vhetted by experts from internation traffic management areas
4 Educating programs to all the citizens on the benefits of following proper signal laws and increasing the trust factor in the traffic cops' performance and contribution
5 Last but not the least, rope in the automakers of the world to provide suitable vehicular designs which actually help the traffic problems by replacing pressure horns with electronic ones... or some such measures which will prevent people from misusing their vehicles and actually reduce traffic impact
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