National Institute of Infrastructure Management and Research Director D. Ramesh Kumar has underscored the need for popularisation of rail-based ‘Mass Rapid Transit System’ to address problems relating to traffic and environmental pollution in major cities in the country.
Addressing a seminar on cost benefit of ‘Metro Projects’ presided over by Pace Institute of Technology and Sciences Secretrary M. Sridhar here on Saturday, he said Metro Rail offered saving in fuel cost as also reduction in emission of greenhouse gases and number of road mishaps.
Traffic congestion
Though capital intensive, metro rail projects were best suited for large cities in view of accrued direct and indirect benefits to the public in the form of traffic congestion reduction and pollution reduction in the long run, he said. A good public transportation system should ideally be a combination of various modes of public transportation who should be complementing each other, he said.
Further, experience gained from similar projects from other countries on various aspects related to construction, operation and environmental management could also be suitably used for any project to ensure that they were environmentally sustainable as well as socially acceptable, he added.
