<p>One thousand new vehicles are registered every day in Bangalore’s 10 RTOs. The City’s notoriously overstretched roads are reeling under a daily onslaught of 44.53 lakh vehicles. Now is the time for a dramatic change<br /><br />Vision 2020. Showing off their jazzy, hyper-powered SUVs and fully loaded cars, Bangaloreans occupied every inch of the city’s gridlocked roads. Bathed in sweat, mercilessly overworked, the traffic policeman cursed his fate, as the vehicular pile-up turned menacing. Two trying days old, and the traffic jam had refused to budge an inch! Screaming aloud, a sky-high billboard at the junction announced the arrival of the latest monster car in town.<br /><br />This scene from the near future might look extremely unsettling. But for a City that adds a whopping 300 cars every day, records 1,000 new vehicle registrations daily at its 10 Regional Transport Offices, the scenario is dangerously close to boiling point, right now, right here. For Bangalore’s notoriously overstretched roads, reeling under a daily onslaught of 44.53 lakh vehicles, seven years from now is definitely Destination Hell. The time is now to apply the brakes, and make that dramatic route change !<br /><br />Motorcyclists switching to cars, car-owners shifting to gas-guzzling SUVs, and SUV drivers graduating to more fancy wheels. Hardly sustainable, this heady cocktail might be. But caught up in their aspirational islands of power and money, the riders will just not stop. “This aspiration (to flaunt wealth, cars as status symbols) is a cultural and social issue. You cannot stop it. Even if a person stays bang opposite a bus stand, he will still buy that car and drive it.” The man making this telling observation is M A Saleem himself, the city’s Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic and Security).<br /><br />Tasked with the responsibility of handling the city’s humungous traffic, giving it a semblance of order against mounting odds, Saleem knows the issues of that aspiration too well. “Even if the Namma Metro work is completed, I don’t see a substantial reduction in the vehicular population. Only about 10 to 20 per cent of the vehicles will be off the roads, particulary on the main arterial roads,” says he.<br /><br />One-way solution <br /><br />To cover a City with 11,000 kilometers of road, 44,000 intersections, and 343 signalised junctions, the traffic police have only 2,839 officers and men. As many as 636 posts are lying vacant. Despite the challenges, Saleem had devised traffic management systems to reduce the congestions in the Central Business District. He defends the 168 one-ways in the City, many of them in the CBD. “One-ways reduce the time taken at the junctions. So the vehicular movement is faster even if the distance would be slightly more.” Between 2004 and 2007 alone, as many as 94 city roads were made one-ways. <br /><br />Houses with multiple cars and bikes are on the rise across the City. With income levels rising and loans getting affordable, this trend will only grow. Youngsters acquiring bikes once they turn 18, and cars once they start working, the vehicle numbers will continue to swell. As Saleem puts it, “There is no escape from this. Even if you ban vehicle registrations in the City, people will still go to Tumkur or Kolar RTOs and return.” <br /><br />Motorcyclists turning four-wheeler owners is bound to worsen the road congestion. A study by the Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning (CiSTUP), Indian Institute of Science, highlighted this shift between 2008 and 2011. During this period, two-wheelers grew at an average rate of 5.5 per cent per annum, while the number of cars went up by 12 per cent. In the same span, the share of two-wheelers came down from 71 to 69 per cent, but that of cars and jeeps went up from 16 to 19 per cent. This trend continues unabated, and in a more apparent manner. <br /><br />Studies have estimated that Bangalore will have 72 lakh vehicles by 2020. That is an alarming figure, which will push the City to the very top in vehicular density. Bangalore’s vehicle to passenger ratio is 1:2, twice that of Delhi (1:4) and four times that of Mumbai (1:8). But only 45 per cent of trips here are by public transport, a far cry from Mumbai, where the suburban trains, buses and other public modes of transport make up for 82 per cent of the daily trips.<br /><br />Boosting the efficiency and frequency of public transport buses is one oft-quoted alternative to personal vehicles. But are people not taking these buses in big enough numbers? The Volvo’s have definitely found many takers, particularly among those commuting between the IT hubs of Electronic City, Whitefield and the Central Business District. But as the relatively poor response to the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Service (BMTC)’s monthly Bus Days have shown, public transport is generally not the first choice. <br /><br />Besides, big buses such as the Volvo’s and Marco Polos take up more space on the ever-narrowing roads. Lack of dedicated bus lanes and bus bays make it even worse. Yet the city traffic police officials are willing to accommodate as many buses as possible. Rationale: Only through such vehicles can BMTC hope to wean away commuters from the comfort of their cars. So, buses are allowed even on narrow lanes such as Avenue Road during morning hours, some buses are permitted to go against a one-way, carving a separate lane at the signals. <br /><br />Car-pooling challenges<br /><br />Despite its shortcomings, car-pooling is another concept the traffic police are banking on in the short term. Although the city’s huge base of car-owners are yet to adopt the concept in a big way, new initiatives such as Ridingo (www.ridingo.com) promises to bring in a change in attitude. Explains Vardhan Koshal, the co-founder of Ridingo: “An initial survey showed us multiple layers of problems. We have adopted technology to try and get over it.”<br /><br />Here are some problem areas: Reluctance of car-pool members to wait for the others; time-coordination; ensuring that members are trustworthy; and awkward cash transactions among the members. Koshal and partner Srivatsan Mohan devised a plan where car-pooling membership would be restricted to only employees of reputed firms, whose backgrounds can be verified. They also tied up with a petroleum firm to make fuel card transactions as a mode of payment between members. “As many as 1,300 have already registered with us now. Within the next two months, we will spread our operations to the whole of Bangalore,” informs Koshal.<br /><br />Ridingo’s strategy is to make the service delivery efficient enough for people to trust their car-pooling plan. “People are now sceptical about sharing their cars, their personal space, with strangers. Once they realise the multiple benefits of car-pooling in terms of money and time saved, health benefits and the reduction in the number of cars on the roads--, there is bound to be a behavioural change,” says Koshal confidently.<br /><br />Yet, car-pooling could only be a short-term solution. The city’s vehicle traffic management cries for a drastic, long-term vision. That vision should involve decongesting the city’s core first. For, anyone travelling from Jayanagar to Malleswaram, or Indiranagar to Vijayanagar is today forced to struggle through the traffic-heavy CBD. The strategies and action plans being worked out by the different city agencies should be in sync with Bangalore’s Circular City plan. That would definitely be smarter than going around in circles !<br /><br />Growth of vehicles in Bangalore (2001-12)<br /><br />si no. year No. of Vehicles in thousands <br />1 2001 1566.1 <br />2 2004 2157.5 <br />3 2007 3106.6 <br />4 2010 3686.3 <br />5 2011 4171.0 <br />6 2012 4453.0 </p>
<p>One thousand new vehicles are registered every day in Bangalore’s 10 RTOs. The City’s notoriously overstretched roads are reeling under a daily onslaught of 44.53 lakh vehicles. Now is the time for a dramatic change<br /><br />Vision 2020. Showing off their jazzy, hyper-powered SUVs and fully loaded cars, Bangaloreans occupied every inch of the city’s gridlocked roads. Bathed in sweat, mercilessly overworked, the traffic policeman cursed his fate, as the vehicular pile-up turned menacing. Two trying days old, and the traffic jam had refused to budge an inch! Screaming aloud, a sky-high billboard at the junction announced the arrival of the latest monster car in town.<br /><br />This scene from the near future might look extremely unsettling. But for a City that adds a whopping 300 cars every day, records 1,000 new vehicle registrations daily at its 10 Regional Transport Offices, the scenario is dangerously close to boiling point, right now, right here. For Bangalore’s notoriously overstretched roads, reeling under a daily onslaught of 44.53 lakh vehicles, seven years from now is definitely Destination Hell. The time is now to apply the brakes, and make that dramatic route change !<br /><br />Motorcyclists switching to cars, car-owners shifting to gas-guzzling SUVs, and SUV drivers graduating to more fancy wheels. Hardly sustainable, this heady cocktail might be. But caught up in their aspirational islands of power and money, the riders will just not stop. “This aspiration (to flaunt wealth, cars as status symbols) is a cultural and social issue. You cannot stop it. Even if a person stays bang opposite a bus stand, he will still buy that car and drive it.” The man making this telling observation is M A Saleem himself, the city’s Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic and Security).<br /><br />Tasked with the responsibility of handling the city’s humungous traffic, giving it a semblance of order against mounting odds, Saleem knows the issues of that aspiration too well. “Even if the Namma Metro work is completed, I don’t see a substantial reduction in the vehicular population. Only about 10 to 20 per cent of the vehicles will be off the roads, particulary on the main arterial roads,” says he.<br /><br />One-way solution <br /><br />To cover a City with 11,000 kilometers of road, 44,000 intersections, and 343 signalised junctions, the traffic police have only 2,839 officers and men. As many as 636 posts are lying vacant. Despite the challenges, Saleem had devised traffic management systems to reduce the congestions in the Central Business District. He defends the 168 one-ways in the City, many of them in the CBD. “One-ways reduce the time taken at the junctions. So the vehicular movement is faster even if the distance would be slightly more.” Between 2004 and 2007 alone, as many as 94 city roads were made one-ways. <br /><br />Houses with multiple cars and bikes are on the rise across the City. With income levels rising and loans getting affordable, this trend will only grow. Youngsters acquiring bikes once they turn 18, and cars once they start working, the vehicle numbers will continue to swell. As Saleem puts it, “There is no escape from this. Even if you ban vehicle registrations in the City, people will still go to Tumkur or Kolar RTOs and return.” <br /><br />Motorcyclists turning four-wheeler owners is bound to worsen the road congestion. A study by the Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning (CiSTUP), Indian Institute of Science, highlighted this shift between 2008 and 2011. During this period, two-wheelers grew at an average rate of 5.5 per cent per annum, while the number of cars went up by 12 per cent. In the same span, the share of two-wheelers came down from 71 to 69 per cent, but that of cars and jeeps went up from 16 to 19 per cent. This trend continues unabated, and in a more apparent manner. <br /><br />Studies have estimated that Bangalore will have 72 lakh vehicles by 2020. That is an alarming figure, which will push the City to the very top in vehicular density. Bangalore’s vehicle to passenger ratio is 1:2, twice that of Delhi (1:4) and four times that of Mumbai (1:8). But only 45 per cent of trips here are by public transport, a far cry from Mumbai, where the suburban trains, buses and other public modes of transport make up for 82 per cent of the daily trips.<br /><br />Boosting the efficiency and frequency of public transport buses is one oft-quoted alternative to personal vehicles. But are people not taking these buses in big enough numbers? The Volvo’s have definitely found many takers, particularly among those commuting between the IT hubs of Electronic City, Whitefield and the Central Business District. But as the relatively poor response to the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Service (BMTC)’s monthly Bus Days have shown, public transport is generally not the first choice. <br /><br />Besides, big buses such as the Volvo’s and Marco Polos take up more space on the ever-narrowing roads. Lack of dedicated bus lanes and bus bays make it even worse. Yet the city traffic police officials are willing to accommodate as many buses as possible. Rationale: Only through such vehicles can BMTC hope to wean away commuters from the comfort of their cars. So, buses are allowed even on narrow lanes such as Avenue Road during morning hours, some buses are permitted to go against a one-way, carving a separate lane at the signals. <br /><br />Car-pooling challenges<br /><br />Despite its shortcomings, car-pooling is another concept the traffic police are banking on in the short term. Although the city’s huge base of car-owners are yet to adopt the concept in a big way, new initiatives such as Ridingo (www.ridingo.com) promises to bring in a change in attitude. Explains Vardhan Koshal, the co-founder of Ridingo: “An initial survey showed us multiple layers of problems. We have adopted technology to try and get over it.”<br /><br />Here are some problem areas: Reluctance of car-pool members to wait for the others; time-coordination; ensuring that members are trustworthy; and awkward cash transactions among the members. Koshal and partner Srivatsan Mohan devised a plan where car-pooling membership would be restricted to only employees of reputed firms, whose backgrounds can be verified. They also tied up with a petroleum firm to make fuel card transactions as a mode of payment between members. “As many as 1,300 have already registered with us now. Within the next two months, we will spread our operations to the whole of Bangalore,” informs Koshal.<br /><br />Ridingo’s strategy is to make the service delivery efficient enough for people to trust their car-pooling plan. “People are now sceptical about sharing their cars, their personal space, with strangers. Once they realise the multiple benefits of car-pooling in terms of money and time saved, health benefits and the reduction in the number of cars on the roads--, there is bound to be a behavioural change,” says Koshal confidently.<br /><br />Yet, car-pooling could only be a short-term solution. The city’s vehicle traffic management cries for a drastic, long-term vision. That vision should involve decongesting the city’s core first. For, anyone travelling from Jayanagar to Malleswaram, or Indiranagar to Vijayanagar is today forced to struggle through the traffic-heavy CBD. The strategies and action plans being worked out by the different city agencies should be in sync with Bangalore’s Circular City plan. That would definitely be smarter than going around in circles !<br /><br />Growth of vehicles in Bangalore (2001-12)<br /><br />si no. year No. of Vehicles in thousands <br />1 2001 1566.1 <br />2 2004 2157.5 <br />3 2007 3106.6 <br />4 2010 3686.3 <br />5 2011 4171.0 <br />6 2012 4453.0 </p>
