Transport conundrum

For five mins, I was thinking whether I should write a long blog today or not. It was already late in the night and I had a tiring day. But then quality can not be compromised for long so I decided that something substantive should come out.

I visited one of the highly regarded pilgrimage tourist destination of Jains, Tijara Ji for some familial purpose. The day was happening, I met Arun (My distant relative) after 13 long years. The worth mentioning part was the return journey. It took me 2:30 hours to cross some 30 km stretch connecting Gurgaon and Delhi. I was really sad to see the sorry state of traffic and transport affairs. Loads amount of fuel was being wasted due to slow speed of traffic. The air was filled with vehicular smoke. It was difficult for people like me who step out relatively infrequently to breath properly. I noticed nearly 300 small vehicles passed by the bus in which I was travelling. Nearly 70% of them had occupancy of 2 or less than two. Nearly 90% had their windows glasses up. I presume they would be using air conditioning.

I am perplexed that why people are not able to comprehend the social impact of their individual actions and social goods of their life style changes. The highway is wide enough to occupy at least 4 lanes of vehicles on each side but still the exponential growth in the traffic has made it ineffective. For the sake of flexibility of schedule, independence and show off People prefer private vehicle over public transport. Most of the executive class make their own environment conducive to health by switching on AC but they forget that cumulative impact of their individual practices worsens the overall atmosphere and directly impact the health and well being of people who prefer to use public transport or are forced to use public transport.

The slow speed of traffic kills productive working hours, burns extra fuel, vitiates the environment, impact health and well being leading to lung cancer, increase pollution and deteriorate the living standards. On the other hand, if some of us are able to make basic life style changes of using public transport once a week or car pooling or replacing cab culture with bus culture then a large part of problem could be solved. However, the shift to life style changes won't happen automatically. Rather Government needs to play a facilitating role.

Firstly, Government needs to spruce their public transport system. We can not advocate the alternative of public transport without having a robust system in place first. For this,Metro rail project should be expedited. The mechanism of rapid transit system needs to be developed such that Bus rail road water or any other mode of transport are integrated in seamless manner so as to make the user experience of travel cheap and convenient. We can replicate Ahemedabad model of Bus rapid transit system. The system has failed in Indore but that is no basis of why it won't work in Gurgaon. Just imagine, what could happen to a person who fall ill in such traffic situation? There was no way to deal with such emergency so that person can come out of the traffic.
Secondly, A regulatory and enforceable framework is necessary for making life livable in such situation. The traffic rules related to lanes should be enforced strictly. The regulatory implementation is also necessary. On basis of such regulatory decisions, We can increase or decrease the number of coaches in Metro rail or increase number of buses or other public transport on roads.
Thirdly, A greater emphasis should be placed on traffic profiling and consequent planning of traffic and road development. India is in the stage of expansion. The land is limited, population and vehicle are increasing exponentially thus we need to use technology in provide real time information on traffic and regulating it accordingly. Electronic toll booth could be one example of effective use of technology in this regard. Further scientific innovations like low altitude flying cars or Chinese Bus cum rail service could be useful to us. We need some policy research on the appropriate length of traffic signal or traffic directions on particular roads.
Fourthly, In Indian context, no solution of road traffic management could be solved by entirely government or technological intervention. We can not borrow western prescription and blindly paste them in Indian context. Indian social milieu is way different from the western individualistic culture oriented developed country. To deal with such situation, we need to think of Indian solution to Indian problems. One part of any Indian problem is associated with lifestyle changes. For example, incentivise car pooling or promoting MNC's to use buses instead of cabs for providing conveyance to employees. Different companies or offices can have different opening or closing timings so that peaks of traffic could be moderated. Once a month Work from home culture or Video conferencing to facilitate work from remote location could be pursued. The approach of limiting number of cars per family or mandatory car pooling or auctioning car number plates or restricting the entry of even number/odd number car on to roads on certain days may seem to go against democracy but in public interest, these are viable and much needed options that should be seriously enforced.

There is lot more to write but will write some other time. I should also try to shape my blogs as newspaper articles, so that I can send it to editors. But anyway, enough for now.

We also had a very good discussion on whether Gita should be taught in schools or not. Will write on that later. Running short of time. Daily. Bad

Good night