Having completed sampling of nearly 5,500 households to assess their daily commuting patterns as part of Comprehensive Transportation Study (CTS), consultants for the study are now planning to rope in the help of local leaders and elected representatives for the initiative.
LEA Associates South Asia, which has taken up the comprehensive study to come up with solutions for the increasing traffic woes in the city on behalf of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), plans to cover 32,000 households for the survey by the month of March.
Exhaustive study
In what could be described as the biggest and most exhaustive such study in the city, the survey looks at generating data for various parameters including average number of visits made in a day, distance travelled, purpose and mode of travel and the amount spent on it, among others.
“Certain reluctance on part of some households in responding to our investigators is observed. We are now thinking of approaching local leaders and elected representatives such as MPs, MLAs and also Corporators in facilitating the survey,” said T.S. Reddy, team leader for LEA Associates.
Excuses given
Some of the households that were approached excuse themselves from the survey citing “do not have time” and others are willing to give little information and not beyond. The questionnaire is exhaustive, running into six pages and seeks inputs from socio-economic status, employment to origin and destination of daily travel, time spent on travel and intermediate transfer of transportation modes if any.
“It is exhaustive and needs a couple of hours to fill in. But citizens need to cooperate with us since the effort ultimately is to find solution for the traffic and transportation problems faced by them,” Mr. Reddy said.
The household survey has been designed to cover 695 traffic zones of Hyderabad Metropolitan Area (HMA) spread over 7,190 square km and for the purpose, 300 investigators have been trained and put on the field. In terms of sampling also, this is the largest exercise in the city.
The last major sampling was done in the year 1986 and though few others were taken up in between, they were not that exhaustive in nature. “The survey in 1986 took a sample of 1.5 per cent of the population and we are also doing the same, but the population has grown up considerably since then,” an official added.
