The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Time to take tough measures

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 10, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Time to take tough measures

Anil Kumar Sastry

China, Singapore have put in place system to curb use of private vehicles

BANGALORE: A bus carrying nearly 80 people occupies just two-and-a-half times the road space a car transporting one or two people occupies on a city road. In this process, the lower income groups have effectively ended up paying, in terms of higher travel time and higher travel costs, for the disproportionate space occupied by personal vehicles.

This is one of the observations in the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP), which rightly identified inequitable allocation of road space where the focus is on the vehicle and not on people. The road space gets allocated to whichever vehicle that occupies it first even as users of non-motorised vehicles have been squeezed out due to safety threat.

While India came out with NUTP in 2007 and a beginning to have a Unified Mass Transport Agency (UMTA) was made in Karnataka by way of establishing Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Authority (BMLTA), many Asian countries which witnessed similar urbanisation process made the start at the beginning of 21st Century. China and Singapore stand out among these countries which successfully regulated privatised modes of transport and encouraged public transport.

Authority

The Land Transport Authority (LTA), Singapore, was formed on September 1, 1995, by merging four public sector entities — Registry of Vehicles, Mass Rapid Transit Corporation, Roads and Transportation Division of the Public Works Department and Land Transport Division of the then Ministry of Communication. It seeks to deliver a land transport network that is integrated, efficient, cost-effective and sustainable to meet the nation’s needs.

On the other hand, Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications is the umbrella agency to regulate and coordinate all transport-related issues in the Chinese capital, including participation in macro city planning. Its main functions include carrying out national guidelines, policies, laws, codes and regulations about the development of transportation industry; study and draft out local laws and regulations on transportation in Beijing and supervise their implementation.

Clampdown

Beijing as well as Singapore have taken several steps to discourage use of private vehicles and encourage commutation by public transport including buses, train and metro. Karnataka Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) Commissioner Gaurav Gupta, who recently visited China and Singapore to study urban transport systems, noted that Beijing has more than 18,000 buses and 200-km metro subway system catering to the travel needs of residents.

Bus fares are quite cheap in Beijing with flat fare of two yuan while taxi fares too are comparatively lower to India.

Tough measures

Singapore which brought in unified transport regulatory agency way back in 1995 has successfully been discouraging use of private vehicles by means of vehicle rationing, levying congestion charges and encouraging road transport and metro rail.

A Singapore citizen needs to possess a certificate of entitlement to own and use a car, which he has to buy in monthly auction by paying a premium. The cost of obtaining the certificate and the quantum of motor vehicle tax would be more than the cost of vehicle. The LTA will decide the number of certificates to be auctioned.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka