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Together, we can, we will reduce the traffic Jams in bangalore, Its possible.

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dvsquare - 23 July, 2009 | Traffic | Bangalore | BMTC | RTI | Analysis | Traffic jams

I am writing this post as to give my research on the causes of traffic jam in bangalore roads and then a few suggestions on how to improve it and at last, your suggestions/feedback/support/help on how to implement it.

So, First of all I would like to mention that Bangalore is nowhere compared to Delhi, Mumbai with respect to the population, area and the number of vehicles. Hearing a lot about traffic jams in Mumbai and Delhi is obvious, but somehow I don't think that increasing number of vehicles in Bangalore are actually creating the jams. I would list down a few cause of traffic jams in Bangalore-

(1) Ignorance of the common man towards one's responsibility:

Yes, the common man, we the people, we have to understand our responsibility of following the traffic rules either we are on vehicle or we are walking on road, we have to follow certain rules for the sake of other's lives. Also, the so called educated-sophisticated people carrying laptop on their back should understand that they shouldn't behave like uneducated, I see many violating traffic lights, riding on footpath, violating one-ways by either risking other riders or pedestrians lives.

(2) Bad governance, specially by Traffic Police

Traffic police are not there for policing the traffic, they are there for just collecting the fines and meet the revenue target set for the month/quarter/year. You always see 3 policemen always at the catching-spot, one for stopping/catching slow-moving, innocent bikers, the second one for checking papers and negotiating and the one-the-main is for taking the bribe or so called fine. While you never see atleast a single strong policeman policing the traffic on the most congested traffic signal and roads of the bangalore, making it even worse. And if there is any policemen, they are just for watching the scenes.

(3) Worst road sense and traffic violation by Public Transport Vehicles:

Yes, I am talking about the BMTC drivers, they are undoubtedly the worst drivers around. They not at all care about any vehicle on the road, risking everyone's life around 360 degree of the bus. They never follow traffic signals, never keep their vehicles fully left, never stop at dedicated bus-stands, always stop their buses leaving a lot of space on their left thus eating up all the space on the road, then here comes another BMTC bus which has to overtake the first bus on that bus stop and it tries but bad-luck, Bangalore roads are not that wide, so what happens next is - deadlock, chaos, and taffic jam for a long long time. Who suffers, the common man.

(4) Worst maintainence of the current infrastructure:

Government does some of the infrastructure work, not very efficiently but whenever they does, first of all they don't complete their work quickly by creating more traffic jams, and whenver they complete, then we common man seems to be not deserving of all that, we think of it as our private property and use it like hell.

If we can get to think on solutions/suggestions, how we can do something about the above mentioned points, I am pretty much sure that Traffic problem in Bangalore can be easily solved and atleast reduced to much extent.

I have thought of filing RTI to BMTC, Police dept about some of the things, but I need some more suggestions/support/help as to how we can go about it practically, efficiently and make a difference.

Please come forward and help make a difference.

Regards,

Deepak

 

 

COMMENTS

Let me start commenting on this to start with

dvsquare - 23 July, 2009 - 16:37

Here is the link from ritindia.org, where I have been trying to get some ideas on how to use RTI for this cause.

http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/24519-can-i-seek-information.html

Read it and let me know your feedback/suggestions?

Any other idea is welcome.

Assumptions - Are they Correct ?

Naveen - 24 July, 2009 - 08:01

Dvsquare - Greetings,

You mentioned :

"Bangalore is nowhere compared to Delhi, Mumbai with respect to the population, area and the number of vehicles. Hearing a lot about traffic jams in Mumbai and Delhi is obvious, but somehow I don't think that increasing number of vehicles in Bangalore are actually creating the jams."

Well,  though in population Banglaore (abt 7 million) is well below that of Mumbai (17 million), Delhi (12 millon) or Kolkata (15 million), it's vehicle volume is now almost 3.5 million & is 2nd only to Delhi. The length & area for roads in bangalore is much smaller than for Delhi.

Given these conditions, traffic congestion will also be correspondingly higher with the resulting indicipline & delays.

I have tried to summarize these in a paper that I have just posted - see my blog "Whitepaper - Still of Relevance".

Hope this helps.

Let it be, I just want to focus on how we can improve it.

dvsquare - 24 July, 2009 - 16:25

Hi,
Thanks for the data provided and I am in agreement with you with the data, I apologize for not going by the exact facts.
But still it doesn't give anyone a reason to have traffic jams and congested road and live with it, when we know that these can be lessen down by around 40% if we behave properly on the road. And 40% is a huge number.
You agree with me on the points I mentioned, is it? If yes, shall we move forward together and plan something for this?
Let me know what you think about it and how shall we move forward?
I will also go through the whitepaper you posted.
 

big subject, lets try break down

silkboard - 27 July, 2009 - 18:37

If we break this down into small sets of information, each set creating an "index" that we can track, then I am certainly game for this data collection driven awareness building exercise.

Let us develop this idea further over comments.

We need following sets of data

  1. Public transport performance, basically BMTC, and some on Metro (their integration plan with BMTC). Now, we have collected lot of data on BMTC already, just search BMTC posts on Praja
  2. Traffic enforcement performance, track BTRAC, and traffic departments productivity. There is some data readily available, rest we can ask for. As long as Mr Sood is there, don't think we will need any single RTI
  3. Road space usage. This is a tricky one. Nobody tracks or collects data around this, but I would think that BBMP and BDA own the road spaces. We will have to make some extrapolations. I can fore-see a Praja event to calculate road space usage in some select areas.
  4. Driving Education & Compliance. Basically, a way to track driver education levels. Hard not to get data on - things like average score new drivers got in their driving tests, or % of applicants who failed their first attempt (I am told its 30% in UK/London) . This would have to be survey based, don't think we will get much from RTO.

What else?

If we can some sets, esp #1, #2, #3 done, and can produce data every quarter, I think we will generate enough shame and awareness to "influence" some change.

I am game. In fact, if what I mentioned here in this comment is what you have in mind as well, then it would be great to meet you - I think we are thinking very similar things here.

Great, lets meet up and discuss, it would be better, what say?

dvsquare - 28 July, 2009 - 15:03

Hey,

That's great to see your response.

Lets meet up sometime soon and get this going.

Deepak

Yes Together we can make a big difference.

naiksu - 21 November, 2009 - 17:26

It's good to see that there are people who do think about the traffic situation in Bangalore. I in my own way am trying to create an awareness about following the Traffic rules.

First I would say that each one of us should start following the rules, come what may. Further we can start enrolling our family people and our friends to do the same.  I feel that many of them are kind of resigned with a feeling that  "What can I alone do?".  I think we should not get stopped by that thought. Just start following the rules and it will have a positive impact on atleast few of them around you. I have experienced this.

Apart from this we can have traffic awareness related announcements in Radio's and TV's. This normally happens only during the Traffic Awareness week once in a year.  Can we have this on a regular basis or on a daily basis.

Get famous personalities talk about Traffic Awareness or spread the message through emails to known people.

I feel each one of us can take a lead in spreading the awareness and as Deepak has says Together we can and we will make a big difference.

Any suggestions are welcome and we can take this forward in making the Bangalore a better city.

Spread the message. Lets make it happen.

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