Bangalore traffic - Solution

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+ sparcs 2 months ago
@das_gv Thanks for you feedback.

As I said earlier, I am all with you when it comes to not accepting something because it is shoved down our throat by someone from the government; be it engineers or politicians propagating something based on their whim or solely for their benefit.

I also earnestly thank you for presenting your view on what an alternative could be. I got to this link from HasiruUsiru′s website and I assumed that it was more like a technically sound report and hence my arguments.

My issue is that when I see numbers being used, I expect them to be accurate; Otherwise, I think they mislead people. Maybe thats just me, but to argue, if I apply my own logic, I′d have to report back with numbers as well. That will take me some time to do all the research. The same goes with logic. If something has failed in city X and city Y I don′t think I can conclusively say that it will fail in city Z too unless I study all the factors which led to its failure. And that is equally true for successes. Therefore when quoting that the bus system works well in a particular city I would evaluate all the other conditions which make it possible, some of which include disciplined driving, wide roads etc., before saying we could apply it here with ease.
+ das_gv 2 months ago
@3 : Of course there will be lots of private vehicles on the roads. We are not talking about a 100 % switch to public transport. We are talking about a majority of people using public transport, a majority of the time. If we can reduce the number of vehicles to even 10 Lakhs at any given time, that would solve all the problems.

Today the private automobile is god, and that should change. By the way, in our family of 2 adults and a child we have 2 cars. My wife drives a Reva, and my car is a big fat petrol guzzler. I however drive the car max. of 3 days in a month. It’s not about owning automobiles, it’s about using them responsibly.

On the number of buses on the road, I suggest that you take the worst case scenario and see if it will still solve the problem. Like 50,000 buses (realistic is 20,000), and road space requirement for bus : car is 10 % instead of 3 %, etc.

@4 : Just search for ′Delhi metro ridership′ in the internet. Also see the annual reports for various in their web site to see the pattern of revenue earned - how much from ticket sales, how much from real estate rentals, etc. Same for Kolkata Metro. I am not someone with an insider′s knowledge of all these numbers. I′m just another citizen who has taken care to understand the numbers and derive further numbers and conclusions from them. You should question everybody′s numbers and conclusions, and not even trust my list of sources for data. All such data is freely available on the internet, and I suggest that you independently study the issue.

Regarding your question : ′How can we derive that what happened in Delhi and Kolkata will happen in Bangalore too? ′
If something has failed in 2 other places, which is more likely?
1. That it will fail here too, or
2. It will succeed here ?

@5 : Bangalore Metro has already overshot its initial projected cost and time. See various details in their web site. Also see the EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) report. You can also get details on bus systems worldwide.

Please look at the general idea of my presentation and article, and the numbers in them. These numbers can be 50 or even 100 % off, but the argument does not change. For example, the maximum actual number of vehicles on the road at any given time may be 70-80 % of 35 Lakhs, may vary between localities, may vary day to day, etc. It′s still too much. We might build 300 km. of Metro in 60 years instead of 120, but I′m not going to be alive in either case, and I′m going to suffer continuous construction for the rest of my life in either case.

Cities in countries far richer than ours (including cities like LA in the US) are implementing bus based systems. As citizens, we should not allow engineers to push upon us a ′technology′ that they are in love with. We need solutions, not technologies.
+ sparcs 2 months ago
Sorry just to clarify @4: I was asking for references on this question: How can we derive that what happened in Delhi and Kolkata will happen in Bangalore too?

When I re-read my comment it seemed like I was only asking for references to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s remarks; hence this addition to clear it up. But yeah, references on that would be great too.
+ sparcs 2 months ago
Thanks for your reply, das_gv. Here’s my response:

@1. Thanks! I’ll look into it. I will post my feedback on that article there.

@2. You are right. I’m not promoting cars as an efficient method of transport though.

@3. Even if we have an efficient bus system there will still be private vehicles plying on roads. I’ve been in several countries having efficient public transport, but they still do have cars and other vehicles on roads. We should be aware that no everyone will switch to public transport even if it’s great.

I don’t agree on the 1% explanation though. Because the size of a bus is bigger than two wheelers and at any point of time not all of the 35 lakh vehicles are on roads. That will not be true of buses.

@4. Some references please.

@5. Blind faith is bad. I agree with you on that. The article you cited however, is mainly working on the US and Europe data, and has inconclusive data for 'other countries'. They do not compare rail costs vs. other system costs for other countries. Check Table 2 in that paper.

The authors are very clear that Rail projects are underestimated in US and Europe, but when compare it with other nations, they just say that underestimation is prevalent everywhere. They do not compare the underestimation in rail vs other projects in other countries. That way their conclusion section is slightly misleading.

The second point i’d like to make is that they combine statistics for all types of railway systems. We should find metro or local train statistics for a fair comparison. Super fast trains have more advanced technology and I’m not sure if they can be compared with a normal metro setup.
+ das_gv 2 months ago
In response to the comments of Sparcs.

1. This article of mine will answer most of your queries :
http://www.slideshare.net/das_gv/yaara-metro

2. The average city bus is designed to carry 75 people - 40 sitting and 35 standing, comfortably. Even if you reduce the number to 40, the road space requirement is 1/15 th of that of a car.

3. Bangalore now has 5000 buses. Even if we increase this to 30,000, this is still 1 % of the number of private vehicles (35 lakh). There is no question of buses choking the roads.

4. Metro’s ridership in Delhi is approx. 5 %, and similarly in Kolkata. There was even criticism of Delhi Metro’s traffic projection from the Comptroller and Auditor General recently. The actual ridership is approx. 25 % of the projected.
5. Our problem is that we place too much faith in the projected costs and benefits of such projects, which often are plain lies. See this article: Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects. Error or Lie?
http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/JAPAASPUBLISHED.pdf
+ sparcs 2 months ago
I appreciate your effort to make Bangalore a better place. I am a happy cyclist and really appreciate your efforts to promote cycling and walking as a real and practical means of transport. At the same time I do not agree with all that is said in this presentation.

Firstly, 75 people on a bus is a huge number. You are probably right from a realistic point of view by counting the number of people in majority of the BMTC buses today, but that is not the kind of density we should be planning ahead for. Moreover, if you really want cyclists to carry their cycles along with them to ride on when they get to their destination, then the density has to be even more lower than the recommended 35- 40/ bus.

The second thing I noticed was about what is said about metro’s reach. This presentation states that metro’s benefits will only be felt in the highlighted portions
of the map and that highlighted portion is 5% of Bangalore. Two questions on that:
1. Is it really 5%? It certainly doesn’t appear that way on the map.
2. What is the population density in those highlighted areas compared to the rest of the map? Reporting based on the population density would be more accurate than highlighting portions on the map.

The third and most important point is that, you can’t really compare metros/rail based solution with buses. They are both mass transport systems, but, to a different scale. A bus cannot compete with metros when it comes to speed. However, even in the most dense metro networks, metros cannot get every passenger to walking distance from their destination. That becomes more true the further away you travel from the city. We do need feeder routes and ring routes which buses can satisfy.

If you only have buses, then there will be a sea of buses (bigger than what it is today) entering and leaving the city because that is the magnitude of the number of people moving. If you propose that buses move within a region and people change buses when travelling across regions then there is a whole lot of time wasted and it will be a very slow process. Even from a logistics point of view, it would be good to have 2 transport systems so that we don’t depend entirely only on road transport for our city. What if some VIP is coming in and roads are blocked? You’ll be stuck in a long traffic jam of buses!

Would really appreciate your comments on these points.
+ Chethan Thimmappa 3 months ago
You are awesome bro!
excellent composition!
+ guestdff83e33 6 months ago
hey once the metro takes shape everyone will understand its benifit. I have stayed in Kolkata for a long time and know how people are actually benifitted by metro. Buses are good, but metro is also required. The metro coverage maybe not large, but still people can easily reach a metro station within 10mins in a bus or auto. The rest of the journey, is assured, to be peaceful and comfortable.
+ guest52fa24 6 months ago
Thats awesome and just what we need.

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Bangalore traffic - Solution - Presentation Transcript

Bangalore's traffic mess The solution
The current strategy Widen roads to keep pace with traffic
- Traffic population is doubling every 5 years.
- Road space needs to double every 5 years.
- Not logical.
The current strategy Dog chasing its own tail Road space can never keep pace with vehicle population.
Bangalore 2015 ? 20-lane road in LA, USA. Congestion in spite of 20 lanes and 2 levels. Smog in background caused by vehicular pollution.
Result of present strategy Pollution, environmental destruction, road accidents, temperature rise, wasteful expenditure on road infrastructure.
The solution Replace private transport with public transport. The only solution that will work in the long term.
Which public transport ? The Metro ? Or The bus ?
The Metro is not a solution Only people in this band will use the Metro in 2012. 5 % of Bangalore.
Metro : 100-year project Bangalore London Paris London, Paris, New York took more than 100 years to build city-wide coverage.
The Metro is not a solution None of us will be alive when it is finally built, 100 years from now. Cost Rs. 100000 Cr. for city-wide coverage. Beautiful technology, but what we need is a solution, not a technology.
The Bus is the solution During rush hour A car or bike has 1 person A bus has 75 people There are 150 vehicles on this flyover, carrying 150 people.
There are 75 vehicles between each pair of red lines, carrying 75 people.
If we get each group of 75 people out of their private vehicles and into a bus, This is what happens.
Road space used by a person in a bus is: 3 % of a person in a car 5 % of a person on a 2-wheeler Congestion Congestion ?
The logic already works in Bangalore 38 Lakh people in 5000 buses occupy this much road space. Proportionately 35 Lakh people in 35 Lakh private vehicles occupy this much road space. 0.5 %‏
Buses win, worldwide More popular than Metros. Used in 100s of cities worldwide, in developed and developing countries
In sum Road widening is useless, harmful Metro is too long term, too costly The best solution Bus for long commutes Cycling, walking for short commutes   
Without destroying Bangalore Reduce No. of vehicles by 75 % Commute time by 30 % Pollution by 80 % Spending on roads by 90 % Increase spending on Water, Medicare, Education, Power
Which lifestyle do we want ? Our cars and bikes have given us this 1
Which lifestyle do we want ? 2 Bus + cycling + walking can give us this
Convert to this new religion. Today. CyBaNa Cycle + Bus + Nadiyodu Start, by every week, 1. Making at least one trip by bus. 2. Cycling at least once to the neighbourhood store.
You can make a difference Never say this : “ Oh forget it ! The problem is too big. What difference will it make if I alone switch to CyBaNa ? Might as well keep on driving my car or bike”.
Even a tiny mosquito can make a difference. Ever tried sleeping in a tent with one ? And, if you have lower self-esteem than a mosquito, you better see a shrink at the earliest.
Join citizens' groups Hasiru Usiru http://hasiruusiru.org Praja http://www.praja.in or Write to [email_address] For more information, or to join a group working on CyBaNa