NEW DELHI: A day after the Barapullah Phase-III flyover was opened to the public, Delhi Traffic Police, in coordination with the Public Works Department (PWD), conducted a joint aerial survey using drones on Thursday, officials said. Since its opening, the corridor has witnessed a high volume of traffic, resulting in congestion, particularly at the merging point near the Sundial.
The Barapullah Phase-III Flyover, connecting Mayur Vihar with the existing Barapullah corridor, was inaugurated on Tuesday by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and opened for public use on Wednesday.
During the inspection, it was observed that the merger of the Phase-III flyover has a relatively sharp and rectangular geometry, resulting in an abrupt merging of traffic and formation of a bottleneck.
“There is a significant mismatch in lane capacity at the merging point, with multiple streams of traffic converging towards the existing Barapullah Flyover, which has comparatively limited lane capacity," the officials said.
"The newly opened corridor is attracting substantial traffic that would otherwise use NH-24 and DND, thereby increasing the traffic load on the Barapullah corridor,” the officials added.
Traffic police have taken up the matter with the concerned agencies and have proposed modification of the merger geometry near the Sundial by providing a smoother curvature for safer and more efficient merging of traffic. The matter has already been taken up with PWD for necessary corrective action.
Traffic police have also proposed installing appropriate traffic control signals at suitable merging points to regulate traffic inflow and prevent excessive accumulation.
Other measures include updating traffic or navigation information for the newly opened Phase-III Flyover on Google, so commuters receive accurate, real-time traffic information, and regulating traffic towards NH-24, wherever feasible, to reduce excessive traffic pressure on the existing Barapullah corridor.
Delhi Traffic Police is closely monitoring the traffic situation at the location and is coordinating with the concerned agencies to address the identified infrastructural and traffic-management issues.
The nearly 10.9-km Barapullah elevated corridor connects Mayur Vihar Phase I through Sarai Kale Khan to south Delhi and the AIIMS area. It is likely to cut the travel time between east and south Delhi by 15 to 20 minutes. The project was originally scheduled for completion in 2017, but it faced multiple delays, pushing cost upwards.
Shah launched the newly built elevated road along with three other road infrastructure projects worth Rs 1,941 crore.