In Delhi, India, it can be difficult to enforce curbside bus lanes. Photo by EMBARQ.

One of the most controversial aspects of Bus Rapid Transit design in Delhi has been the designation of median lanes as opposed to curbside lanes. The initial bus corridor in Delhi is based on median lanes to give priority to bus riders. Duno Roy, who set up the People’s Science Institute in Dehradun, India and The Hazard Centre in Delhi, explains his views on this controversy in the India Business Standard. The discussion involves the tension between giving priority to vehicle users or bus users. Concludes Roy: “Moving the BRT to the left lane will kill whatever potential it has left.”
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The Tata Nano creates buzz in India and around the world. Photo by code_martial.

India experienced an automotive breakthrough last week: the release of the Tata Nano, the most economic vehicle in the Indian market, and arguably, in the world.

The so-called “people’s car” has received praise from many sources, such as The Economist:

Despite the Nano’s size (it is a bit over ten feet, or three metres long) its interior is surprisingly spacious. This is no accident. The car is the pet project of Ratan Tata, the Tata group’s revered chairman, who is over six feet tall. Accordingly, the Nano is optimised for the 95th percentile of American men. In South Asia, this makes the car downright cavernous. When it comes to performance, the Nano goes from zero to 100kph (60mph) in a languid 30 seconds, but it is surprisingly enjoyable to drive. And with a petrol consumption of 67mpg, few cars can match its fuel-efficiency.

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The traffic on the streets of Pune is busy with rickshaws, bicycles, buses and pedestrians. Photo by wili_hybrid.

In India, 105,725 people were killed and 452,922 people were injured in road traffic crashes in 2006, and the fatalities can be expected to grow to 260,000 in 2030, unless new policies are implemented, according to a study by Mohan, Tsimhoni, Sivak and Flannigan on road safety in India. The report, “Road Safety in India: Challenges and Opportunities,” was recently released (January 2009) by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute.
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Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus, in Mumbai. Photo by thebigdurian on Flickr.

(Thanks to transport planner Madhav Pai for contributing to this post.)

Money spent on different types of transportation has little or no relationship with the way people actually move.

Consider the case of Mumbai, India by comparing transportation expenditures and modal shares (or, the percentage of travelers using a particular type of transportation):

The government proposes to make the biggest investment - close to Rs 139,000 crore - on Metro and suburban rail, but only about 22% of people ride the train. Instead, most people (56%) walk or bike.

Authorities would also like to spend a hefty amount - more than Rs 55,042 crore - on the highway system, but less than 2% of people travel by private car. Other than walking and taking the train, most people (14%) travel by public bus, a system that is receiving a proposed investment of only Rs 4,280 crore.

Given the current mode shares of transport in Mumbai, the financial allocation appears highly inequitable. The plan caters to the upper middle class by being metro rail- and car-centric. The largest constituency of travelers - pedestrians and bicyclists - who make up 56% of the travel demand aren’t represented. It would have been nice to see resources allocated to providing infrastructure for them.
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Chirag Delhi bus station. Photo by Madhav Pai.

The bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor in Delhi is one of the most controversial projects in Indian urban transport. It encountered several problems during the first week of its implementation, stirring up a great media outcry. But the Delhi Government was able to recognize the positive impact of the project for pedestrians, bikers and bus commuters, and it decided not to scrap the pilot corridor.

The Delhi government elections in November largely ran on a platform that included going ahead with the busway expansions, but some media outlets and transport experts urged the city to ditch the project altogether. The Times of India, for example, reported that the Standing Committee in Parliament recently said plans for BRT system would be a “nightmare” for Delhi residents and should be abandoned.

But it looks like the media reports may not have been telling the whole story, says Sanjeev Lohia, director of the urban transport division for the Ministry of Urban Development.

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Flickr photo by code_martial.

There was news this week that India’s Tata Motor’s is facing a number of hurdles as it works to release a $2,500 car for sale on the Indian market.

Tata’s planned Singur plant is apparently being closed, and, while the factory is expected to move to Sanand, Gujarat, land acquisition problems there need to be solved before production can begin. The big question, however, is once these hurdles are overcome, will the Nano be a transport revolution?…The answer is yes and no.

Yes, because a number of Indian families will now be able to afford a four-wheeler, thereby meeting their transport demands in a safer and higher quality manner than on two-wheelers.

No, because, even at the low price the car is supposed to sell at, $2,500 is still exorbitant for many poor Indians, and so a relatively small percentage of Indians will actually be able to pay the full cost of the Nano.

And no again, because individual mobility (in the form of private automobiles) is no solution to growing transport and environmental concerns. More cars on the roads — even low cost, low emission ones — will only increase congestion, pollution and accidents. Solutions to these problems will really only come in the form of better public transportation and non-motorized infrastructure, which serve the needs of the majority of the population, as well as protect the global environment.

As Dr. Dinesh Mohan rightly points out in a recent editorial, TATA can also help in this area, by mass producing high quality, low cost, low emission buses – instead of focusing solely on the Nano.

India Pedestrians at busy intersection in Mumbai. Photo by saibotregeel.

Engineering is often the only factor considered during design and implementation of junction improvements plans at key locations where flyovers are built. But the reality is that these locations are commonly filled with pedestrians and used as transit points, and any plan that overlooks this is doomed from the start.
Originally Published on IndiaTogether.com

How many times have you heard someone say, “Building this flyover has made the traffic situation worse, not better”? If you live in any of the major metropolitan areas, I suspect you’ve been within earshot of that view - or even expressed it yourself - quite often. All sorts of reasons are furnished - lack of land allotment, inadequate enforcement, bad design of the flyover itself, etc. Being a transport planner, I wondered about some of the reasons offered, and came up with two key explanations of my own. I decided to test my hypothesis, by making some observations of my own.

I visited two locations - first, the Silk Board junction in Bangalore (intersection of Hosur road and Outer Ring Road), which is the gateway to Electronic City southeast of the metropolis, and second, the flyover on Western Express Highway in Andheri, Mumbai (formerly known as the Goldspot Junction). At both locations, I found the same two issues that I suspected had never been considered during any stage of the design and construction - high pedestrian traffic, and stops made by outstation and other private buses. These problems are also a common feature, I am sure, of virtually any flyover in the peripheral neighbourhoods of all cities; a singular ‘engineering’ mentality to design and construction has resulted in grand structures, but these don’t appear to have solved the underlying problems that prompted their construction.

The quality of steel and quantity of concrete do matter, of course. But while engineering excellence is necessary, it should be accompanied by an effort to understand, identify and address location-specific constraints and conditions. Without this, we will simply see an endless array of plans gone awry on the street, at great expense to taxpayers.

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Referring to high-end BRT systems as ‘Quickways’ could clear up confusion regarding what is — and what is not – a true BRT system.

Bus Rapid Transit (a.k.a BRT) is a hot topic in sustainable transport. In Latin America alone, dozens of new BRT systems have recently come online or are under development, and numerous transport experts are hailing BRT as a cost-effective means for improving mass transit and fostering socially and environmentally sustainable transportation systems.

In the broadest sense, BRT refers to the systematic combination of infrastructure (e.g. busways, stations, terminals) and vehicles, with well-organized operations and ‘intelligent transportation’ technologies. By combining these various elements, BRT is able to provide better service and greater efficiency than is possible with traditional bus operations.

While accurate, this general definition encompasses an extremely diverse set of applications. Thus, BRT as it is currently defined can refer to anything from simple improvements in bus technologies and user information systems, to so-called ‘high-end’ applications replete with features such as: exclusive bus lanes; frequent bus services; advanced bus ‘stations’ with electronic prepayment and level access to the buses; centralized control centers for efficiently managing routes and pick-up times; and a distinctive branding image for the system.

As a result of this ambiguous BRT taxonomy, wildly different systems, such Delhi’s controversial new Busway and Sao Paulo’s Expresso Tiradentes, are both referred to as BRTs. But Delhi’s new system does not have stations that allow level boarding (i.e. the station floor height matches the floor of the vehicle, and passengers are not required to take a step up or down to board the vehicle). These stations also lack a prepayment system, which forces users to spend time purchasing tickets on the bus. Furthermore, Delhi’s exclusive lanes are open to all types of public transport vehicles, not just specially designed, high-capacity buses like in a true BRT. Finally, a good BRT system must have an organized, centrally planned and supervised bus dispatch and control system, as well as clear and consistent signage and user information systems - all things that are conspicuously absent in Delhi.

Sao Paulo’s new BRT, however, is quite comprehensive, with fully segregated lanes, plied exclusively by advanced, high-capacity hybrid buses, and advanced, high-capacity stations.

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A Delhi Busways station. Photo by Madhav Pai.

By Dario Hidalgo and Madhav Pai. Originally published on IndiaTogether.com
Compared to other bus corridors world-wide, the Delhi effort is a very limited one. The current design is only a busway, and the government must push forward to build a full-fledged Bus Rapid Transit system, say Dario Hidalgo and Madhav Pai.

Policies that give priority to public transport, people-powered vehicles and pedestrians are always very positive. The Delhi Busway pilot project - which is generally referred to as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) - does all of the above, and hence it should be recognised as a progressive undertaking.

Conceptually, it has a profound sense of equity, as most of the road users in Delhi are walking, biking or riding public transportation vehicles, while the minority - who are rich but influential - are in private motor vehicles. According to data compiled for the Urban Age project, Delhi has less than 5 per cent of its population moving around in cars, 15 per cent in motorbikes and other vehicles, 39 per cent walking and biking and 42 per cent in buses. These statistics alone make a case that the constrained space of urban roads should be allocated in a way that benefits the majority of users.

Beyond equity considerations, space allocation to the most efficient modes of transport also has important sustainability impacts. The resulting financial burden to society as a whole is much lower, and expensive energy sources are used less. Also, emissions into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide as well as toxic substances are lowered, with benefits on the public health front, as well as in the fight against global warming. And overall, less time is consumed in transportation.

These real benefits possibly explain why, in spite of the problematic launch of the busway, and the extremely negative media coverage of it immediately thereafter, the majority of the public still favours the project. Independent commuter surveys conducted by Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and NDTV found that bus commuters overwhelmingly support the Delhi Busway. For some, the result may be surprising given the operational glitches and the media blitz declaring the bus corridor a disaster. While there are several things about the pilot project that should be improved, it would be both a strategic and political mistake to scrap it. The outpouring of public support for the new bus corridor by the majority of its users should be heeded. Lessons from the various difficulties encountered so far, and also from the experience of other similar projects elsewhere in the world should be considered and implemented.

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The Pune Miror has an interesting article on a study conducted by the Maharashtra Police on highway accidents in India. Simply put, the results are startling.