What are the issues?
- With a population of 10 million, Pune region now has 2 million registered vehicles, and 1300 new vehicles are added every day. 62% of these are 2-wheelers.
- Only 6% of land space in the region is covered by roads whereas as per UDCPR it should not be less than 15%. Pune has only 2200 KM of roads and 60% of these are narrow roads, less than 20 ft This reduces the road space available to its citizens for commuting.
- No Ring Road and its rapid urban growth has happened around radial roads which has led to radial dependence and congestion on available roads, especially in the core of the
- Current use of public transport is just 17% whereas in the cities like Mumbai and Delhi it is 50% and above.
- In the current scenario public transport share is just 19% and Car C Bike share is 71% of road trips and if we don’t take any measures now then public transport share will drop to 12% and private vehicle share will increase to 76%. Present proposed projects are aimed at improving public transport share to 40% and reducing private vehicle share to 53% by This itself will not be enough.
- Poor road infrastructure and over population of private vehicles on the roads has led to congestion and traffic indiscipline in the city leading to slow movement as well as higher accidents
Identified Solutions:
Based on the scientific analysis of the data collected through various surveys, he presented long term solutions with high cost involved and medium- and short-term solutions with not so much time and cost involved. In fact, some of these can be implemented in weeks and months. Also, how to optimize the existing road infrastructure to maximize the use and improve the travel time.
Low cost quick to implement solutions are design improvement of existing roads, repair and maintenance, traffic management techniques, last mile connectivity using feeder vehicles and public cycles, and travel demand management techniques. These can make an impact in weeks and months.
Some of the Travel Demand Management Techniques are:
- Common ticketing for all public transit and NMT
- Feeder buses/mini buses for last mile connectivity with Metro
- Distributing peak hour traffic by adjusting office and school
- Use of mobile applications for tracking travel behavior and encouraging public
Along with PMC Traffic Planners and under expert guidance the Traffic Police has prepared an Integrated Traffic Movement plan. One of the major problems is inadequacy of road network in the city. To improve it they need to first define the road hierarchy to connect the missing links. The focus is on improving the roads capacity through efficient management and connecting the missing links in the road network. Under this plan they have identified 32 Arterial Roads (230 KM), 50 sub-arterial roads (96KM), and 15 Collector roads (69 KM). Connecting the missing links between these roads will enhance the overall capacity of the road network.
