Will privatisation solve city’s traffic woes?

Will privatisation solve city’s traffic woes?
George K Kuruvila
A simple and efficient public transport system can reduce the woes of overburdened traffic on Bangalore City roads
Deccan Herald

Ask what the single biggest problem in Bangalore is and most Bangaloreans would likely say it is the vehicular traffic jams, the consequent maddening time wastage and high pollution levels. What used to be a 15-minute drive, today can often take an hour or more. With the growth of vehicles at about eight per cent per annum, far outstretching population growth (at four per cent per annum), the problem of compounding private vehicles is likely to further increase in the future, unless public policies are encouraged which would change this trend.

The need for appropriate/bold public planning policies: What are such needed planning policies? Is the desired objective of reducing vehicular traffic achieved through widening roads and building mini-flyovers/grade separators thereby encouraging more vehicular traffic, or is it by encouraging efficient means of public transport which would wean away private vehicle owners from their vehicles? The proposed Metro Rail may take about eight years or more to build (including all the phases; at a phenomenal cost of about Rs 190 crore per kilometre), by which time at the current rate of growth, there would be at least twice the number of total vehicles as there are today. Then how much stabilising effect would the Metro rail have on our sprawling spread out city, when it simply runs down the central spine of the city? We then got to have efficient feeder systems to this spinal metro rail.

What will this “feeder transport” system be? Should it be mono rail and/or a bus transport system and or “sky bus” or “sky train” (each system is very interesting to study as each has its pros and cons). This should be hopefully done before the government and the public together make a decision on choosing the type of transport they deserve. Otherwise a justifiable debate can and should arise, as in the case of Metro Rail vs Mono Rail – not only should these two forms of public transport be considered, but others as well, examples as mentioned above.

An immediate relief to the City’s traffic crisis

Considering the above, what can give immediate and considerable relief to the traffic woes of the city? One which can, is an efficient, simple, easily understandable bus transport system. But the present transport system conjures myriad negative images in the minds of many middle and upper income people, the very people who need to be weaned away from their automobiles and motorised two wheelers. In order to tackle these negative images of the present bus transport system, let us begin with identifying what these are. Overcrowding/uncomfortable, complex routes/ lack of understanding of different routes, lack of easy accessibility etc may be some of the current problems which discourage many private vehicle owners to switch to a public bus transport system. Most importantly, there just aren’t enough public buses to cater to the present demand and need, especially when we want to make the service comfortable and attractive enough to middle and higher income groups who own private vehicles.

In such a situation, there may be just one alternative – that is to call upon the ingenuity and hard work of private entrepreneurs to address / meet the challenge. For whenever and whereever there is a problem, there is an even greater opportunity to solve the problem, and our peoples’ enterprising spirit can easily rise to meet such challenges, provided they are allowed an opportunity to do so. This has been proven place and time again through out the history of modern India.

In fact, Indians are ingenuous and enterprising enough to propose solutions to the challenges in other developed nations which have the capacity to pay, and has so developed our computer/IT skills, medical transcription and back processing offices, and presently developing health tourism businesses.

The role/experience of private enterprise

In our own country, private businesses have greatly pitched in to largely mitigate the overload of demand in telephone service, postal/courier service, air travel, intercity bus travel and vehicular demand (the effective solving of which has resulted in the huge traffic increase, but this is because simultaneous attention was not given to public transportation. If intra city public transport had been opened to private enterprise as well to complement existing government service, as done in above cited cases, then the problems of exceeding demand in private and public transport could have both been solved simultaneously, through greater supply and better service).

Paraphrasing information sent to me by my friend, Mr Muralidhar Rao, an engineer and keen commentator on the issue (through work compiled by Nagarik, an NGO and himself):

“Let us look at the likely scenario resulting at the end of three to six months of implementation of competitive, privatised city public bus transport policy:

“Corporates like TVS, Ashok Leyland, etc, alongside the present contract-carriage operators like Blueline, VRL, Sharma Transports, KPN, etc, apart from co-operatives like those formed by ex-servicemen, are likely to come on the scene with hundreds of buses, catering to all kinds and classes of demand.

“The resulting competition will automatically drive the different service providers to come up with innovative schemes of attracting more and more people to switch over to the use of the buses rather than relying on their individual vehicles.

“At the lower end, you will have the ‘Janata’ services, stopping at all bus stops enroute, and charging the barest minimum (which in all possibility will be much lower than BMTC’s present charges).

“At the upper end, you will have the A/C deluxe services (possibly with broad, reclining seats, newspapers & magazines for reading, etc) catering to corporate executives, and operating from suburbs, say Whitefield to Residency road, with just few stops in-between. These buses may also cater to school/college students, possibly with a 25 per cent concession being offered to them.

“In between, you will have a wide spectrum of services, with each service provider making known his USP through the local media.

“Even within a Jayanagar or a Indiranagar, you will have mini-buses operating in given circuits, catering to the local shopping and other needs of the residents.

“The usage of two-wheelers and cars will reduce drastically, at least for commuting, leading to:

nde-cluttering of city roads, thereby providing room for speedy movement of buses.

nreduction of air pollution with lower per capita consumption of fuel.

nspread of population from city centers to out-lying areas due to ready availability of cheap and efficient means of transport.

npromotion of the healthy practice of walking at least to and from the bus stops.

nan appreciable drop in the monthly family transport budget.

In the rural areas also, the demand for good public transport will lead to entrepreneurs/co-operatives coming forward to meet it, and healthy competition will ensure efficient and cheap services.”

Govt promoting pvt cos for urban transportation

In this connection, reference is made to the report on ‘Bus Transport Systems’ displayed on the website of the Union Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, salient excerpts from which are listed below for our reference:

“Promoting public bus transport should be viewed as a priority in any strategy to improve urban road traffic and in controlling air pollution from automobiles. The country can ill afford the luxury of unchecked growth of private vehicle population. The costs to the country’s economy in terms of higher fuel consumption and to the society in terms of health are significant enough to warrant urgent action. Clearly, there is a strong case for promoting private enterprise in meeting transport needsa in urban areas…An aspect of public policy that impacts on provision and expansion of public transport either by state-owned utilities or by private entrepreneurs, relates to the unviable fare structures imposed by the authority…With improved efficiency, the fare structure can continue to remain low while still providing for overall viability of the operations.”

Experience of other cities

Let us also consider the experience of other Indian cities: “Our decision to allow private operators to venture into public transport has yielded results, in that there is healthy competition between NWKRTC and private operators, fares have become competitive, and above all people are happy” — Mr Siddappa Kaller, Dharwad RTO. According to Mr Muralidhar Rao, who visited Delhi in March’05, in his capacity as Co-Chairman of the Commuter Comfort Task Force of BMTC, “Even without the Delhi Metro Rail (usage of which is well below capacity), Delhi’s aam janata is fairly satisfied with the connectivity afforded by the 4500 odd private sector buses operating as ‘stage carriage’ services in the city, apart from the 3000 odd buses owned and operated by the Delhi Transport Corporation.”

Conclusion

Will public policies such as increasing road widths and building flyovers help reduce the number of private vehicles (increasing numbers of which are causing the traffic jams), or actually encourage it? On the other hand, as explained above, the proposal for allowing efficient and increased bus transportation systems will allow “pooling together” of individual automobile and two wheeler users, thus lessening number of private vehicles on the road and allowing immediate relief to our maddening traffic woes.

The author is an architect and urban/regional planner. He can be contacted at: gkk_townplanning@yahoo.com