Traffic congestion and Bottlenecks - Issues and Dimensions

Transport Demand, Overcrowded Public Transports, Massive shift towards Personalized Vehicles, Irregular and ill mannered traffic flows, Traffic Congestion - Demerits, Road Rage, Traffic Bottlenecks - Causes, India's most notorious Traffic Bottlenecks, Parking issues, Road Defects, Traffic accidents (2015), Ribbon Development, Encroachments, Highway Distractions, Road Safety Measures

1. TRANSPORT DEMAND Transport demand in most of the Indian cities has increased substantially due to increase in population as a result of both natural increase and migration from rural areas and smaller towns.

2. PUBLIC TRANSPORTS - OVERCROWDED Unfortunately, Public transport systems in Indian cities have not been able to keep pace with the rapid and substantial increase in travel demand. Qualitatively , the available public transport services are overcrowded particularly during peak hours and involve long waiting periods.

3. MASSIVE SHIFT TOWARDS PERSONALIZED TRANSPORT As a result, there is a massive shift towards personalized transport, specially cars and two-wheelers, and also proliferation of various types of intermediate public transport modes, such as auto-rickshaws and taxis. The increasing use of private motor vehicles in cities has been rapidly changing their modal-split structure.

4. Motorization may have brought a higher level of mobility to the high-income segments of urban population, but its adverse impact in the form of congestion, air pollution, and traffic accidents is also substantial.

5. TRAFFIC CONGESTION

6. TRAFFIC CONGESTION

7. The problem of acute road congestion, rising air pollution, and a high level of accident risk faced by metropolitan cities of India is taking serious dimensions and worsening the people’s quality of life. Reducing traffic congestion, vehicular emission, and accident risk requires a comprehensive strategy. The main objective of such strategy should be to provide and promote sustainable high quality links for people, goods, and services to, from and within the city. Strategy should be designed in such a way that it reduces the need to travel by personalized modes and boosts public transport system.

8. AIR POLLUTION

9. EFFECTS OF TRAFFIC CONGESTION Millions of people deal with traffic congestion on a daily basis. The roadways leading into and out of most major cities can become gridlocked due to an accident, road construction or simply a high number of cars on the road. Traffic congestion can have a number of effects on drivers, the environment, health and the economy.  One of the most harmful effects of traffic congestion is its impact on the environment. Despite the growing number of hybrid vehicles on the road, cars stopped in traffic still produce a large volume of harmful carbon emissions. Besides contributing to global warming, these emissions can cause more short-term and localized problems, such as smog and increased respiratory problems in a community due to poor air quality . ROAD RAGE

10. Traffic bottleneck  A traffic bottleneck is a localized disruption of vehicular traffic on a street, road, or highway. As opposed to a traffic jam, a bottleneck is a result of a specific physical condition, often the design of the road, badly timed traffic lights, or sharp curves. They can also be caused by temporary situations, such as vehicular accidents. Bottlenecks can also occur in other methods of transportation. Capacity bottlenecks are the most vulnerable points in a network and are very often the subject of offensive or defensive military actions. Capacity bottlenecks of strategic importance - such as the Panama Canal where traffic is limited by the infrastructure - are normally referred to as choke points; capacity bottlenecks of tactical value are referred to as mobility corridors.

11. Traffic bottlenecks are caused by a wide variety of things : Construction zones where one or more existing lanes become unavailable (as depicted in the diagram on the right) Accident sites that temporarily close lanes Narrowing a low-capacity highway road Terrain (e.g., uphill sections, very sharp curves) Poorly timed traffic lights Slow vehicles that disrupt upstream traffic flow upstream (also known as a "moving bottleneck") Rubbernecking : Rubbernecking is an example of how bottlenecks can be induced by psychological factors; for example, vehicles safely pulled to the  shoulder by a police car often result in passing drivers to slow down to "get a better look" at the situation.

12. MOVING BOTTLENECKS A slow tractor creates a moving bottleneck

13. TRAFFIC FLOWS & PARAMETERS

14. HAPHAZARD MOVEMENT OF TRAFFIC

15. IRREGULAR TRAFFIC FLOWS

16. IRREGULAR FLOWS OF TRAFFIC

17. CATTLE MENACE ON ROADS LEADING CAUSE TO TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS

18. VEHICLE OVERLOADING

19. PARKING PROBLEMS One of the problems created by road traffic is PARKING. Not only do vehicles require street space to move about, but also do they require space to park where the occupants can be loaded and unloaded. The situation is such that on any given working day approximately 40% of the roads in urban India are taken up for just parking the cars.

20. One of the serious ill-effects of parking is the loss of street space and the resulting traffic congestions . The capacity of the streets is reduced, the journey speed drops down and the journey time and delay increase. The operational cost of vehicles is thereby increased, causing serious economic loss to the community. The consequences associated with wrong parking and unparking is known to cause road accidents. Careless opening of the doors of parked vehicles, moving out of a parked position and bringing a car to the parking location from the mainstream of traffic are some of the common causes of parking accidents.

21. BAD ROADS IN INDIAN CITIES

22. Missing sign boards ON INDIAN ROADS

23. BAD ROADS, ABSENCE OF SIGN BOARDS ROOT CAUSE OF TRAFFIC JAMS & MAY RESULT IN ROAD FATALITIES

24. TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS

25. SERIOUS ROAD ACCIDENTS India is facing serious road accident problems. In 2015, about 148,707 people died and 482,389 people got injured due to road accidents. In a dubious distinction, India is the only country in the world which faces more than 14 fatalities and 53 injuries every hour as a consequence of road crashes. While in many developed and developing countries, including China, the situation is generally improving, India faces a worsening situation.

26. NATURE OF ROAD ACCIDENT PROBLEM IN INDIAN CITIES The nature of road accident problem in Indian cities is different in many ways from that in their counterparts in the developed countries. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and non-motorized vehicle occupants are often the most vulnerable, unlike cities from developed world where car and public transport users are the most vulnerable. Since pedestrians, cyclists, and non-motorized users are often from the lower socio-economic groups, road accidents in Indian cities have a disproportionate impact on the poor and vulnerable in the society.

27. MOST VULNERABLE TO ROAD ACCIDENTS PEDESTRIAN motorcyclists

28. ROADSIDE VENDORS - VULNERABILITY TO TRAFFIC HAZARDS

29. RIBBON DEVELOPMENT The growing urbanization and the population explosion have caused the cities and towns to grow at a fast rate. Most of the growth has taken place along the highways radiating from them. Shops, hotels, tea stalls. Repair shops for motor vehicles. Petrol stations, residences and commercial establishments have sprung up linearly along the road, with direct access on the highway. Encroachment of Govt. land goes on without the knowledge of the highway authorities.

30. RIBBON DEVELOPMENT ROADSIDE ENCROACHMENTS DHABAS

31. ROADSIDE ENCROACHERS – LEADING ROLE IN CONGESTION ADDING FUEL TO FIRE

32. Ribbon development has reached alarming proportions near towns and cities and even on newly constructed byepasses. Such an unregulated growth has adversely affected the level of service of the highway, leading to loss of comfort, increased congestion, reduced speed and a high accident rate.

33. HIGHWAY DISTRACTIONS - HOARDINGS ALONG HIGHWAYS

34. HIGHWAY DISTRACTIONS - LEVEL OF EXPERTISE IN ADVERTISING

35. PRESENT SITUATION OF URBAN ROADS AND ROAD TRAFFIC EXTREME CONGESTION AND LOW SPEEDS IN THE STREETS DUE TO INADEQUATE STREET SPACING, CAUSING SERIOUS DELAYS MIXED TRAFFIC CONDITIONS CONSISTING OF FAST AND SLOW MOVING VEHICLES WITHOUT ANY EFFORT AT SEGREGATION HEAVY PEDESTRIAN FLOWS OVERCROWDING IN BUSES AND TRAINS GROWTH OF INTERMEDIATE PUBLIC TRANSPORT VEHICLES ENCROACHMENTS ON EXISTING ROAD SPACE AND PEDESTRIAN FOOTPATHS BY HAWKERS AND VENDORS

36. ROAD SAFETY CAMPAIGNS

37. ROAD SAFETY MEASURES

38. THANK YOU, A PRESENTATION BY EMAAN SHARMA