Session 3B - 'Road Safety in Indian Cities'

1. Recommendations for safe BRT
design for Indian cities
Binoy Mascarenhas, Associate, Urban Transport, EMBARQ
India

2. BRT is emerging has emerged as a cost-effective public transportation
alternative for Indian cities
Success stories like the Ahmedabad BRT have changed the question
from “Why to do BRT?” to “How to do BRT?” – “What is the most
appropriate kind of BRT for my city?”
BRTs are now being developed in many more cities in
India, (Surat, Indore, Pune, Naya Raipur, Hubli-Dharwad, etc), with
many more cities showing interest..
This decade will be the “tipping point”; with an exponential increase in
BRTs, similar to the experience in other parts of the world
The context

3. BRT is now an established concept …
…but there are some concerns that need to be addressed
What is BRT’s impact on:
Road safety,
Local accessibility
NMT mobility
Road capacity
For BRT to gain a wider acceptance by all stakeholders, it must
address these concerns
The context

4. In 2012 EMBARQ released a draft
document on “Traffic Safety for Bus
Corridors”
Background
From 2011-12, EMBARQ conducted
road safety audits on BRTs (Indore,
Delhi, Ahmedabad) and other public
transit corridors
Road safety audits
on Indian BRTs
and other public
transit corridors
Recommendations for safe
BRT design for Indian cities

5. Many of the flagship BRTs in international cities have the following features:
Large section of the BRT on freeways
Restricted property access to such roads
Little or no pedestrians, no at-grade crossing
High speed
Long routes with large distances between stations
But why a separate document

6. Some examples … Bogota, Colombia

7. …and Istanbul, Turkey

8. … similarly, in Guangzhou, China

9. Abundant property development along the road edge
Cars are not the dominant motor-vehicle
Bicycles are not the only NMT mode
Very high pedestrian volume
Traffic discipline cannot be taken as a given
Street vendors and immovable obstacles, like utility
boxes, trees, temples, etc
Auto-rickshaws as the feeder system to BRT
The Indian context is different:

10. Abundant road edge property development
Frequent property
gates
High right / U-turn
demand
High pedestrian
volume and
crossing demand
Requirement for
parking / waiting
area

11. Cars are not the dominant motor-vehicle
Safety features (such as bollards
along pedestrian crossings) for cars
may not work for 2-wheelers
Safety standards for cars different for
2-wheelers

12. Very high pedestrian volume
High crossing
demand
Need for frequent
crossing
opportunites
More footpath
width needed

13. At least in the immediate period, people will continue to flout traffic rules
Safe design is based on “how people will behave”, rather than “how
people should behave”
Traffic discipline cannot be taken as a given

14. Bicycles are not the only NMT mode
Pedestrian crossings and bicycle lanes must be usable by all NMT
modes

15. Street vendors and immovable obstacles
The design must be able to take into consideration, varying levels of
available road width

16. Auto-rickshaws as the feeder system
If auto-rickshaw infrastructure is not provided for, they will make their
own ad-hoc arrangements. This can be a safety concern

17. Data driven: Identifying the main problems through data analysis
Contextual recommendations: There cannot be one solution for
all contexts: type, scale, local conditions matter!
Case-study approach: Documenting the international and Indian
best-practices for various elements of the BRT
Conceptual designs: Providing conceptual designs that can be
suitably adapted for a given context
Impact assessment: Assessing the impact of the design
recommendations on BRT operations, road capacity, etc
The approach for this document

18. Some of the design recommendations

19. The basic midblock template
The provision of a multi-utility (MU) strip on both sides of
the road to accommodate various ancillary uses – parking,
street vendor space, rickshaw stand, utility boxes, etc
All other road elements to be of continuous width – the
MU strip to accommodate all variations in road width

20. Frequent pedestrian crossing
Located at high demand areas
Clearly demarcated
Pedestrian refuge areas
Pedestrian crossing

21. Midblock u-turns
Provided at frequent intervals along long midblock
sections
Safely combined with pedestrian crossing

22. Extension of the pedestrian crossing + u-turn design to accommodate the station
Midblock BRT stations

23. Only left turn access at minor streets
Improves safety as well as capacity for BRT and main road traffic lanes
Intersection with a minor street

24. The draft document has been released, and is currently
under peer review
The final document will be released later this year
Status