1. PROMOTING BICYCLE TRANSPORT ON SECONDARY ROADS
OF URBAN STREET NETWORK
Krishna Saw
M. Tech Student in Trans. Engg., & Planning, SVNIT, Surat
e-mail: kriscivil_10@yahoo.com
Balya Manjurali I.
M. Tech Student in Trans. Engg., & Planning, SVNIT, Surat
e-mail: manjurali.momin@ymail.com
B.K. Katti
Visiting Professor, Civil Engineering Department, SVNIT, Surat
ABSTRACT—Bicycle Transportation is vital for sustainable movements in urban area, as it helps to improve mobility, air
quality, reduce congestion, and conserve fuel. Today, transportation systems in most of our cities are no longer sustainable and
that is the cause of worry for the planners. Therefore promoting bicycle transportation as major part of Non Motor Vehicle
system (NMV) gains due importance in both traffic planning and operation stages. Present paper aims to examine the possible
solution to back up the bicycle system and provide policy guidelines to promote such system in urban areas with the focus on
movement on lower hierarchical urban roads to provide sustainable transportation. It provides strategies to tilt the travel shift to
bicycle usage on tertiary and secondary road of urban areas through proper integration of land use and transportation planning.
KEYWORDS: Bicycle, Secondary Road, Sustainable Transportation
1. INTRODUCTION
With the rapid urbanization in developing
countries in general and India in particular, the
pressure for a new set of Transport services is
increasing in cities, where transport cost are not
sustainable to the lower and economically weaker
section. The cycle rickshaws and horse drawn
tangas emerge here as part of the transportation
system. The system suit to meet the rider’s
requirements and employment generation in an
organized way for short urban trips. Today as
animal drawn travel system is fading way due to
high maintenance cost, the cycling can be as most
effective means of transport within smaller
centres. However, the rapid growth in auto vehicle
population in recent time has its impact on cycle
riding. Looking at the auto traffic hazards,
increased transportation cost, road safety and
environmental degradation, there is no option but
to search for sustainable transportation modes and
system and answer lies in strengthening the NMV
system with more focus on bicycle usages as it
provides nearly three times higher speed than
normal walking speed. More ever it is eco-friendly
and cost effective for urban poor.
2. METROPOLITAN TRANSIT
SCENARIO
Urbanization is a significant phenomenon at
national level, after post independence era. It was
17.29% in 1951 and touched 27.75% in just five
decades and touched urban population mark of 285
million out of 1027 million in 2001. Impact has
been felt maximum on metropolitan transportation
system in terms of substantial increase in transport
demand and traffic growth resulting in
sustainability crisis and distortion in modal split
characteristics.
The personalized trips with cars and two
wheelers found significant edge over public transit
system on one hand and squeezing experience on
NMV travel component. The cycling and walking
travel component reduce to 10% and 20% for our
mega cities respectively. Even the public transit in
some of our mega cities such as Ahmedabaad,
Hyderabad and Banglore etc are not at the desired
mass transit levels. The model split particulars for
seven major cities in India reported by Ministry of
Urban Development are as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Modal Split of Few Cities
City Walk Cycle 2 W PT Car IPT
Ahm. 22 14 25 16 17 6
Hyd. 22 9 19 35 9 7
Chennai 22 9 20 31 10 8
Bangalore 26 7 17 35 8 7
Delhi 21 12 5 43 14 6
Kolkata 19 11 4 54 8 4
Mumbai 27 6 7 45 8 7
Ahm–Ahmedabad, Hyd–Hyderabaad

2. 262 ♦ National Conference & Workshop: RATE12, SVNIT, Surat (07–09 June 2012)
3. BICYCLE TRAVEL: STATUS
As discussed earlier the share of bicycle trips
as a proportion of total trips has declined over the
years. The cycle share and their variations in 25
years from 1980 observed for few cities in the
country are as shown in Table 2. Significant
reduction in cycle travel can be observed in all the
cities except Bhopal and Jaipur. Other interesting
trend is marginal increase in Bhuneshwar and
Surat. Bhopal and Jaipur have shown significant
increase in bicycle usage. However the bicycle
travel level is below the desirable level shown in
table except the case of Nagpur. The
socioeconomic characteristics, urban sprawl and
form are the important attributes for such
variations.
Table 2: Cycle Share in Few Cities (%)
% Modal Share in Total
City 1980 1990 2000 2007 Desirable
Delhi 20 12 5 12 17.5
BWR 32 23 17 21 30
Indore 27 25 17 16 25
Bhopal NA 9 4 17 25
Ahm. 34 NA 17 14 17.5
Surat NA 20 14 16 20
Nagpur 45 40 35 28 20
Jaipur NA 11 7 19 20
*BWR- Bhuneshwar, Ahm. - Ahmedabad
The urban Auto Trip Rate (ATR) and Cycle
Trip Rate (CTR) along with trip length reported in
the literature is compiled in Table 3 for cities
shown. The Auto Trip Rate (ATR) varied from
0.76 Bhuneshwar to maximum 1.55 (Delhi) and
the cycle trips rates are nearly 20% of Auto Trip
Rate (ATR). Maximum Cycle trip Rate has been
observed in Nagpur (0.361) followed by Bhopal
(0.285) and Jaipur (0.239).
Table 3: Per Capita Trip Rate for Few Cities
City ATR CTR ATL CTL
Delhi 1.55 0.186 10.2 5.1
Bhuvanshwar 0.76 0.159 3.9 NA
Bhopal 1.14 0.285 4.4 NA
Ahmedabaad 1.41 0.159 6.2 2.3
Surat 1.28 0.205 6 3.6
Nagpur 1.29 0.361 5 NA
Jaipur 1.26 0.239 6 NA
Trip Lengths TL, CTL in km
*NA–Not Available
The Average Trip length for the city is 5 km.
The observation on average Cycle Trip Length
(CTL) is 3.7 km including capital city of Delhi. It
is 2.3 km in Ahmedabaad and 3.6 km in Surat. As
such the desired Cycle Trip Length (CTL) is about
2.5 km.
4. STRENGTHENING BICYCLE
TRAVEL
In fact, cycling can be considered as a
sustainable transport mode for short trip within
city zone or the plan modules of Neighbourhoods
and TP Schemes. Following are the certain
planning measures to enhance bicycle travel.
4.1 Bicycle Catchment Areas and Cycling
To promote the bicycle transport at anywhere
in urban area, there is need to determine the
potential catchment area for such travel. Most
probable catchment areas of bicycle are residential
areas belonging to urban plan modules such as
Neighbourhood and T. P. Scheme. The bicycles
trips are from residential areas to other functional
areas to cover the trip length from 0.75 km to 2
km.
4.2 Urban Neighbourhood Module
Importance of Neighbourhood and community
planning is realised long ago all world over.
Compact Neighbourhood plan modules, covering
3000 to 6000 population with provision of
amenities and public utility services to support the
planned population. Often community planning
comprises are framed cluster of 3-4
Neighbourhoods to cover 15 to 20 thousand
populations. Focus here should be on walking and
cycle trips to reach primary school, community
shops and dispensary etc within 1-1.5km trip
length. Walking is preferred up to 600 m distance
and cycling can have upto 1-1.5 km.
4.3 TP Scheme Plan Modules
Planning and implementations of T. P.
Schemes have become almost part of Urban
Development programme in Gujarat and
Maharashtra in last two decades, for their effective
implementation and execution through Town
Planning Act. Each TP Scheme can cover 100
hectare to 150 hectares of area to meet the

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REF
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
nsport on Secon
• It is des
on su
demarca
• Bicycle
(BTOD)
transpor
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The rapid u
travel deman
ironmental p
sportation h
estigate the s
he dire need o
urb the ill ef
em sustainab
king have no
an planning
em as a who
weightage fo
dential and f
eme is desire
needs nec
lity by the lo
ycle travel
ters
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