The Ibm Challenge- Delhi City

The IBM Challenge- Delhi city

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As per study IIT Madras. 60,000 Crores is the cost Delhi paying for its Traffic congestion. This is on account of productivity loss, wastage of fuel, air pollution and road crashes. Delhi is currently housing more than 18 million people and growing very rapidly. With population density of 29,259.12 people per square mile, Delhi is one of highly dense city in world. The rate at which population of national capital is much more than rate of growth of infrastructure and this is creating huge amount of pressure on its infrastructure.

During 1981-91, the average annual growth rate of urban population in the Delhi Urban Area (DUA) has been 3.91.  At present the total workforce in the city, including the floating workers, is more than one-third of the total population.  The number of registered vehicles in Delhi has increased from 5.7 lakhs in 1981 to 21.2 lakhs in May 1993, a rate of 13.12% per annum. In contrast, the road length in Delhi has increased at the rate of 4.53% per annum.  The road density is approximately 155 km per 100,000 populations and is accommodating about 80 vehicles per kilometer. 

In spite of metro and bus services, the transport system is not being able to keep pace with the growing population. The figure clearly shows that the number of private vehicles, especially two-wheelers, has grown tremendously.  People have been forced to go in for private vehicles and this has resulted in increased congestion on the roads. Besides congestion, these inadequacies in public transport have resulted in delays and consequent reduction in speed and finally a high rate of road traffic fatalities, making driving and travelling conditions in Delhi highly unsafe. The irony is that everyone is in a hurry but nobody reaches on time.

This issue can be address by government by two ways. First by innovative and effective use of physical infrastructure & by using new IT infrastructure like Intelligent Transportation Solution for Active Traffic Management.

1. Innovative and effective use of Physical Infrastructure (Short and medium-term goals)

Most important solution to ease problem of congestion and pollution will be encouraging use public transport and discouraging use of private mode of transport.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) – In 2008 Delhi got its BRT wrong but it’s worth giving another shot. Building a bus transit system is cheaper and quicker. Experiment in 2008 went in wrong direction due to poor implementation from government side. In 2008, concrete dividers were placed to segregate bus lanes from cars and two wheelers between Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand flyover. Buses got a clear passage but private vehicles on this busy road were squeezed into two lanes (from three), and waiting time at traffic intersections got longer. Areas chosen for pilot projects were wrong. BRTs are running very successfully in many cities of India. Successful implementation of BRT will reduce will increase travel speed and people will switch from private transport to public.

Effective use of Roads- Widening of road is very difficult in current situation as roads are at optimum level. But effective use of width is possible by declaring roads prone to congestion as no parking zone and removing encroachments for non-authorize entities.

Effective use of DTC Buses – As per study average occupancy in DTC buses is 20 only. Identifying routes which has highest two wheelers and private vehicles flow and starting more DTC Buses on that route will be solution for this problem.

Effective use of Private Vehicle – Average occupancy in cars is 2.2 persons. There is need to increase this occupancy to 4 people. For this purpose, government should encourage Car sharing/Pooling apps. Private organization should promote carpooling or bus service for its employees.

1. Use of IT infrastructure (IBM Intelligent Transportation, IBM Traffic Prediction Tool and Mobile Application)

Reduction in congestion is going to lead to reduction of pollution which ultimately going increase citizen conveniences by some extent.

There will be two major stack holders for new IT infrastructure.

 1. Urban traffic planners and transportation system operators