Travel time drops at Bengaluru traffic hotspots by half

The travel time across nine major traffic corridors in the city has come down by nearly 50 per cent during morning peak hours over the last 10 days, according to the data, accessed by DH from the Bangalore Traffic Police.

Apart from rolling out a slew of measures, the newly-appointed Special Commissioner (Traffic) Dr M A Saleem has asked officials to implement rules strictly. “Ban on goods vehicles during peak hours and such rules are now enforced strictly and they have yielded results. We have also deployed staff to regulate traffic at the busy junctions,” he said.

He added that they have prioritised corridors based on congestion and measures to decongest other corridors are on. “The nine corridors where measures have been implemented were highly congested. Many others will be decongested soon,” he said.

A total of 49 pending works have been identified across eight major junctions, including Silk Board and Goraguntepalya. Major problems here include waterlogging, dumping construction material, poor state of footpaths, and ongoing road work. “At many junctions, we need to take up civic work to ease traffic. We are working with civic agencies to ensure such work is completed soon,” Saleem added.

Saleem told DH that managing traffic with existing infrastructure was a challenge. “The volume of traffic has increased drastically,” he said.