BENGALURU: Like other Indian mega-cities, Bengaluru is also facing acute transportation issues such as traffic congestion, delays, and high travel time, and other problems connected to transportation, like degrading air quality, quality of life, negative health impacts, and higher carbon emissions.
The troubles are mainly due to a huge imbalance between travel demand and supply. In the last few decades, the state government and urban local bodies of Bengaluru have adopted a predominance of traditional road infrastructure-based interventions, such as road widening, flyovers or underpasses, elevated road corridors, etc. leading to an increased use of personal mobility modes and trapping the city in a vicious circle of congestion. All over the world, such supply-based measures are no longer considered sustainable, and are not seen in the future action plan of cities. However, the aspirational phase of Indian society is still contributing to this trap.
Further, road conditions and accidents remain key concerns in this city, mainly due to poor workmanship of civic authorities and lack of road safety provisions and traffic law enforcement. In fact, the recent decision by the state government to slash traffic fines is an unfortunate decision, and will prove counter-productive towards any improvement in road-related accidents and deaths.
The recent decision of the government of India to provide more relaxation to the auto industry in the wake of pressures from industry lobby is again an unfortunate decision, which will only encourage more use of personal mobility vehicles in urban areas, thereby further aggravating transport system-related problems.
Solution: The city needs a combination of measures at policy, planning, and infrastructure levels, which will help us achieve a desired ‘push-and-pull’ effect in terms of influencing the mode choice of people towards more sustainable options like public transport, walking, and cycling. To achieve this, the government should focus on and provide the budget for prioritising the movement of public transport (buses, Metro, suburban rail), and walking and cycling, and scaling up their good quality network supply. At the nation level, the country should take a clear policy decision as to what should be the ideal mode of transport and how different modes (road, rail, air, etc.) can build a sustainable transport system for both passenger and goods movement. Accordingly, the budget allocation should be decided for different sectors of transport.
Ashish Verma
Associate professor, Transportation Systems Engg, Indian Institute of Science