Urban Transport Infrastructure November 2018 Urban Transport Infra November 2018 | Page 22

Road Transportation
8 Helpful Steps for Solving the
Problems of Urban Transport
Know some common steps which may be helpful in
solving the problems of urban transport in India
T
here is no readymade
universally
acceptable
solution to the
urban
transport
problem.
Planners, engineers, economists and
transport technologists each have
their own views, which when
combined, invariably produced a
workable strategy. Whatever policy
evolved should be considered firstly,
in the light of time it takes to
implement them and secondly, all
policies need to be appraised in terms
of their cost.
The following common steps may
be helpful in solving the problems of
urban transport:
1. Development of Additional Road
Capacity:
One of the most commonly adopted
methods
of
combatting
road
congestion in medium and small
towns or in districts of larger centres
is the construction of bypasses to
divert through-traffic. This practice
has been followed throughout the
world including India. Mid-twentieth
century planners saw the construction
of additional road capacity in the
form of new or improved highways as
the acceptable solution to congestion
within major towns and cities.
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Since the pioneer transportation
studies of the 1950s and 1960s were
carried out in the US metropolitan
areas, where the needs of an auto-
dominated society were seen to be
paramount,
the
provision
of
additional road capacity was accepted
for several decades as the most
effective solution to congestion, and
urban freeways were built in large
cities such as Chicago, San Francisco
and Los Angeles.
Western
European
transport
planners incorporated many of their
American counterparts’ concepts into
their own programmes and the urban
motorway featured in many of the
larger schemes (Muller, 1995).
However, it soon became evident that
the generated traffic on these new
roads rapidly reduced the initial
advantages.
The construction of an urban
motorway network with its access
junctions requires large areas of land
and the inevitable demolition of
tracts of housing and commercial
properties. By the 1970s planners and
policymakers came to accept that
investment
in
new
highways
dedicated to the rapid movement of
motor traffic was not necessarily the
22
most effective solution to urban
transport problems.
2. Traffic Management Measures:
Temporary and partial relief from
road traffic congestion may be gained
from the introduction of traffic
management schemes, involving he
reorganisation of traffic flows and
directions without any major
structural alterations to the existing
street pattern. Among the most
widely used devices are the extension
of one-way systems, the phasing of
traffic-light controls to take account
of traffic variation, and restrictions
on parking and vehicle loading on
major roads.
On multi-lane highways that carry
heavy volumes of commuter traffic,
certain lanes can be allocated to
incoming vehicles in the morning and
to outgoing traffic in the afternoon,
producing a tidal-flow effect. Recent
experiments
using
information
technology have been based upon
intelligent vehicle highway systems
(IVHS), with the computerized
control of traffic lights and entrances
to freeways, advice to drivers of
alternative
routes
to
avoid
congestion, and information on
weather and general road conditions.
Urban Transport Infrastructure | November 2018