BENGALURU: Calling for the creation of a “digital twin” for Bengaluru, former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai said through this, traffic movement in every part of the city should be found out every hour, every day, every year in the last five years.
“With this, we need to find out the patterns and know the reasons for it. Once the hotspots are identified, then teams can visit them to fix the congestion in that particular area,” he said at the Move In Sync’s Mobility Symposium-2024 on Thursday. At the event, industry leaders, dignitaries, policymakers, and others brainstormed on finding solutions for the traffic congestion problems.
Calling upon urban expert R K Misra, Pai said like how Nandan Nikelani got the best people to work on Aadhaar, Misra can get the best techies who are interested in solving Bengaluru’s congestion problem.
“We can find traffic for the last five years in the digital map and know where new congestions are coming from and simulate it for the next five years. Add Metro rail and more public buses to the simulation, find out its impact and where could the traffic be relieved and know from where the new traffic jams arise,” he suggested.
The overall plan to show people on how things will be in five years and how it can be improved should be shared with the government and bodies like BMRCL and BMTC for action, he said batting for the setting up of a Centre of Mobility with funding from bodies like the Outer Ring Road Association.
Mobility expert Ashish Verma said IISc’s Sustainable Transportation (IST) Lab, Department of Civil Engineering and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has developed simulation models, both micro and macro, and questioned who in the government is listening. Urban evangelist Ravichandar said there is no champion in the government to fix mobility.
TRAFFIC QUALITY INDEX
To help citizens plan their commute in Bengaluru, the Traffic Quality Index (TQI) was launched by ‘Move In Sync’ which grades the severity of traffic congestion -- from smooth flow to extreme traffic congestion. People need to give the starting point and the destination and the TQI predictive tool will offer insights into traffic conditions between any two points, gives the best time with less traffic to plan their journey. Co-founder and CTO of Move In Sync Akash Maheshwari said, “TQI platform grades severity of traffic congestion and helps citizens plan their commute days and timings in advance instead of real-time traffic congestion status where you are left with no options.”
#BLRFootpath Challenge
As part of #BLRFootpath Challenge, taken up by founder of Bangalore Walks Arun Pai and CEO of MoveInSync Deepesh Agarwal, 100 km of footpath was rated. In the rating, 28 km of Outer Ring Road and Sarjapur Road was marked ‘orange and red’ with 110 obstacles like garbage, cables, broken footpaths and drains. In the 25 km Koramangala and Inter Ring Road stretch they found 46 obstacles and marked it yellow. Footpaths in Central Business District, KR Puram to ITPL Main Road, Lal Bagh and RV Road was rated green. Arun said post their challenge both BBMP and corporates came up to fix some of the problems. He called upon the corporates to help fix the footpaths under their CSR initiative.