Pointing out that parking is expensive in London to disincentivise private transport and that nowhere in the world is parking free, City Police Commissioner B. Dayananda said the police are working with the government to come up with solutions that can incentivise public transport.
He, along with Joint Commissioner of Police (Bengaluru Traffic) M.N. Anucheth, DCP Whitefield S. Gireesh and other police officials, was participating in an interaction with IT-BT companies on the Outer Ring Road on Wednesday (August 9). This was a part of Samparka Divasa, an outreach programme preceding Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara’s meeting with the organisations.
Companies’ suggestions
In the meeting, the companies suggested enhancing the BMTC fleet, encouraging public transport, stricter enforcement of traffic rules, and strategic re-positioning of bus stands to ease traffic along the city’s tech corridor. Pointing out that other Indian cities like Delhi have adopted measures including smart signalling, auto challaning and banning of trucks on city roads during the daytime, company representatives requested officials to consider adopting similar measures to ease traffic and congestion during peak hours.
It was also pointed out that the city’s public transport was facing a demand and capacity mismatch. Representatives wondered if Bengaluru could adopt solutions similar to those adopted by Singapore and London, where measures have been taken to disincentivise private transport. Other issues, such as parking heavy vehicles on service roads, blocking the movement of other vehicles and ongoing construction along roads leading to airport in the name of road widening were also flagged.
Public transport
Admitting that increased use of public transport would solve several problems, Mr. Dayananda pointed out that even a completed Metro project would have a very limited impact on the traffic given its carriage capacity would be only 5-6 lakh. BMTC on the other hand transports 40-50 lakh people every day.
“More and more stress on public transport is the solution and also total democratisation of public spaces. The ones who are making opinions on traffic congestion travel in SUVs and cause congestion. Whereas the most vulnerable person is the pedestrian... Another irony of traffic is that every person thinks the other person is responsible for the problems. Everybody thinks rules apply to others,” he said.
While pointing out that smart ticketing and smart challaning is already in place in Bengaluru, they also admitted that the BMTC fleet needs to be enhanced. “There are certain roads in Bengaluru where we have banned BMTC from entering. We must be the only city in the world where public transport is banned to allow private vehicles. These are some of the contradictions we are facing,” Mr. Dayananda said.
Carpooling
The officials suggested that companies can think along the lines of carpooling or even buspooling. “You have to allow thoroughfare for the public through the premises. If there is congestion, then we have to open up. There are lots of things that we can do together,” Mr. Dayananda said.
Responding to the suggestion that companies should be allowed to upload footage from CCTV to the Public Eye app and not just from phones, Mr. Anuchet said the team was working with the ITMS system. “Ideally, we would like footage to be sent to us. Next step is automated enforcement,” he said.
Officials also noted that efforts to identify bus stops closer to traffic junctions were already on and they were working with the authorities concerned to shift them to better locations.
