The Hindu 27.04.2013
Congestion pricing for Chennaiites soon?
Civic body approves study for solutions to ease traffic chaos on city roads.
The Chennai Corporation is all out to tackle one of the city’s chronic irritants — traffic jams.
On
Friday, the Corporation, at its council meeting, passed a resolution
for a study to analyse various means through which clogging on the
city’s roads can be reduced.
An array of traffic
control solutions such as congestion pricing, a bus rapid transit
system, public bicycle-sharing and inter-modal integration may soon be
implemented, based on models in China and Singapore.
A
team of seven Corporation engineers will visit Guangzhou, Shenzhen,
Hong Kong and Singapore to study traffic solutions adopted in these
cities.
The engineers are: R. Jayaraman, D. Rajasekhar, S. Rajendran, S. Sudhakar, A.S. Murugan, R. Manoharan and R. Srinivasan.
The
study, which will cost Rs. 20 lakh, is expected to produce practical
solutions, which will then be implemented to ensure traffic management
in the city is on par with other international metropolises.
The
engineers will be assisted by the Institute for Transportation and
Development Policy as well as a few other non-governmental
organisations.
Many of the 354 km of bus routes and
5,563 km of interior roads are likely to be covered under the new
proposal, which will primarily involve congestion pricing.
Congestion
pricing involves a surcharge for users of transport when the system is
in excessive demand, such as during peak hours.
It
could involve charges for those using private vehicles on crowded roads
and is aimed at reducing the number of vehicles on such roads in order
to ease congestion.
“Congestion
pricing models have been successful in cities such as Singapore and
London. While Singapore has electronic road pricing, Hong Kong has a
very good inter-modal transport integration system. Every city has
various options, and all of them are trying them in various degrees,”
said Raj Cherubal of CitiConnect.
“In the 1960s,
London started congestion pricing. Though it was opposed at first, one
mayor finally managed to implement it,” said a senior traffic expert.
“In
Chennai, such efforts require a lot of determination and political will
by the government. Engineers were not able to implement the loop-buried
vehicle activated signal on Arcot Road two decades ago, as the devices
were damaged by road cuts,” he said.
He added, “Bus
bays are a simple concept, but still, they have not been implemented
properly. It is very difficult to implement anything here, but we have
to try and experiment with various solutions for better traffic
management. A lot of research has to be done before implementing any
solution, including congestion pricing.”
