Infinite thoughts

On way to his Robotics class, Mrunmay and I were waiting on a signal to turn green. And as usual, there were several vehicles breaking the signal and rushing ahead. This 12 yo had this question, again - "Baba, why are these people breaking the signal?" Most of the time, I have answered - "I don't know. They shouldn't". But today was different. I answered - "Maybe their parents didn't teach them to follow the civic rules.." I have been raised by parents who inculcated the habit of following the civic rules along with making me understand the "why" part of it. Even today, I don't jump the signals, I don't park in the no-parking zone, I do not enter from the wrong side. From day 1 of my car driving, I have been wearing the seat belt and from day 1 of my two-wheeler driving, I have been wearing a helmet. This was long before both these rules came into existence.  And Mrunmay has seen me doing it all along. Even he doesn...

With so many vehicles on the road, parking is ought to become a problem for city like Pune. It is no surprise that the old part of the city has huge problem of parking space, but it is surprising to see that even the newer localities are being developed without much consideration towards the parking requirements in coming years. Nevertheless, here are some points which would be applicable to almost all the areas: Need explicit marking where the parking starts and where it ends. Board like "No parking 15 mtrs on both sides" makes no sense to me as it is very difficult to know where 15 mtrs start and where it ends. Better way could be marking the no parking area using two boards indicating start and end of the parking/no-parking slot.  Wherever there's dedicated parking for four wheelers, marking the space for individual vehicles. It is not so uncommon to see haphazard parking, which ends up wasting the valuable space in between the two parking spaces, adding to the p...

Pedestrians form a huge chunk of Pune's traffic. You'll see all kind of people walking the street - students, college crowd, working men-women, senior citizens. It's time to support them with right infrastructure. Pedestrian Crossing (Zebra Crossing) At many signal junctions these are present, and at others they are missing. Wherever they are present, most of the times the vehicles stop on the crossing and hence leaves no place for the pedestrians to use the space. It is rare to see a policeman at the junction enforcing this, although there's a recent drive to put up the signboards across major junctions to keep the Pedestrian crossing unoccupied. A frequency of the pedestrian crossing needs to be defined on long stretches where there are no signals. If there are no accessible zebra crossings, pedestrians tend to cross the road wherever they feel like, causing much of a problem for the ongoing traffic.  I believe crossing the road needs to be simplifi...

While driving through the city, I keep on thinking about the changes those could help improve the traffic in various localities. Some are generic thoughts, while remaining are very peculiar to a specific location - road, junction or a combination thereof. By no means this is an expert opinion, but simply is a wishlist of a person who follow the traffic rules and would like to see various things facilitating the law-abiding citizens!! Today's listing is about traffic control signals. The signals at the junctions seem to be having varying patterns and there's little consistency.  There are places where there are specific signs for allowing U turn, at places there are no such signs. It gets confusing when right turn is not allowed. Does "No right turn" means "No U Turn" as well? Many signals do not have the countdown timers. It becomes impossible for a driver to know if the signal is about to change or not. Moreover, it would help the conscious citizens...

After Pune Traffic Police, it is now PMPML (Pune Mahanagar Pariwahan Mahamandal Limited) who has started using the social media to promote their drives and improve their services through crowd sourcing. Pune Traffic police conducted some nice initiatives by inviting the citizens to post the photographs of offending vehicles (parking in no-parking area/non-standardized number plates/encroachment by private offices/restaurants on public parking space etc). The police ensured that the complaints registered so are addressed, the update is posted on the Facebook along with the action taken and the concerned police station/police officer's name/contact no. Although this is just a start, if continued persistently, this will go a long way to help improve the traffic chaos in the Pune city. Now that PMPML has also launched its own facebook page , we'd see some similar action on this front from PMPML. I have my own reservations about PMPML and hence about this initiative too. As part of...

Simple rules for avoiding Traffic Jam: If the road ahead is blocked, do not cross the middle line of the road and try to move ahead in the queue. If you do, you'd only add to the traffic jam. Everyone in the queue is equally eager to reach the destination and not just you. When you reach a circle aka chowk, and if the road ahead is blocked, then wait well before the chowk/circle to clear the road. This will at least keep the cross traffic moving and will not create a circular congestion. And yes, if you see the traffic jam ahead, do not hesitate to take a diversion to some other road. It would only help in not adding to the traffic jam, even though you may end up taking a little longer route.

If you cut lane, that is okay. If you rash drive that is okay. If you don't check emissions, that is okay. But if you park your vehicle, just two inches outside the faded marking, you gotta pay for that. Then it doesn't matter whether you have parked in the parking zone/side. It only matters if traffic police van passes from there. No, it didn't happen with me, thankfully. But I keep on seeing these kinds of incidences everyday, near my office and other places as well. Has anyone from the traffic department really thought why the mechanism of toeing vehicles to police station is not having any permanent effect? Why do people keep on parking vehicles in no parking zones or apparently just on the border? Do they want to take chance or are really unaware of the traffic signs or just be ignorant? Or is it a case that the fine/punishment is not at all acting as a deterrent? I feel all these questions should be considered by the authorities and see how to solve this problem.

Seems to be a season of additional taxes. Everyone is talking about some additional tax. PMC is considering adding vehicle tax to reduce the number of vehicles coming on road everyday. On the similar lines even the state government is thinking of adding congestion tax Mumbai residents. Every individual is already paying up a huge amount of tax for each and every thing that he/she uses/purchases. Here is a list that directly affects a salaried person: Income tax - largest portion on the salary goes under this head Sales Tax - on every legal purchase, you pay this tax Service Tax - Many of the services are under this head. VAT - This was supposed to reduce the tax we're paying. However, what I have observed is I have started paying VAT even on the food items purchased in restaurents, which was not there earlier. Education cess - Many of the tax categories are levied with this cess. One time road tax - when you purchase any vehicle, you pay a lumpsum amount. Road Toll - At various pla...

This one is on infrastructure. 3.a. I heard people cannot use the lane reserved for BRT. How will this be ensured (unless there is a divider on both sides of the lane)? If there is no divider, then I think its not possible to prevent people (at a basic level we have a problem people not obeying signals) from using this lane (at times of peak hours and traffic jams). How is this aspect taken into care? 3.b. Are safe cycle stands planned at the bus stops so people can literally ‘get from anywhere to anywhere in Pune’? 3.c. Now a days buses are flooded beyond their limits, is there any increase in no. of buses during peak hours? 3.d. BRT lane is in the middle of the road, a person has to cross the road and come on the Bus Stand. Is't it risky? 3.e. Having signals etc is fine, but would the duration be sufficient for senior citizens and the el derly to finish crossing the road comfortably? 3.f. Now that the road is being dug up for expansion, any chance of having good ...

2.a. AG: Assuming that the BRT is a success on Satara road, how will it be implemented for narrow roads? (Satara road is probably the widest of all, what about Karve road, JM road, the old Mumbai-Pune highway, and so on.) 2.b. JI: Is the BRT planned to let me get from anywhere to anywhere in Pune? Meaning how well covered is the network going to be that will not warrant me needing to take my vehicle out so I do not have to be at the mercy of rickshaw wallas? 2.c. PK: Why waste money on a system when it cannot be implemented across Pune? Only 1-2 roads in Pune can support exclusive lanes, then why run a pilot project which anyway will be scrapped or limited to 1-2 roads? It is a waste of tax payers money. ------------------------------------- A typical BRT road needs: a footpath, a cycle track, at least one "other vehicles" lane, one bus lane, a bus stop - all this on both sides, plus an optional bus lan e for overtaking other buses. This infrastructure needs a road width of 3...

Acknowledgements first! :) The questions were sent by: Amarendra Godbole, Gopal Phadke, Jhumkee Iyengar, Mahesh Ambi, Neeta Garud, Prateek Kaul, Shambhavi Borkar, Ujjwal Joshi. Many thanks! We have grouped the questions in 9 categories. We cover category (0 and) 1 today. ------------------------------------------------- 0. Main objectives of BRT: ( Do read the Prologue ) ------------------------------------------------- Create a "metro on tyres" on the roads to increase throughput (no of persons carried per hour by the entire transportation infrastructure), to keep pace with growing needs while providing an alternative to discourage personal transport in order to prevent congesting the roads and reduce pollution. Provide footpath/cycle tracks in the road design to sustain/ encourage non-motorized transport. All in all, provide cost effective, sustainable transportation to all sections of society. 1.a. GP: How is it different from good o...

There's lot of discussion going on about BRT in last few months. There seems to be more confusion and that too based on some prejudices and self-made-assumptions. In an attempt to answer few of those queries and create a better environment to understand the whole BRT system, few of my friends has started a series on BRT FAQ. All of us belong to a movement which is named as 'Save Pune Traffic Movement' and more details about this movement could be found here . I thank Harshad Abhyankar, Rajendra Sidhaye and other folks in the movement for allowing me to re-publish the FAQ that they are putting together with a lot of effort. BRT Prologue: What is BRT? BRT is not just high quality clean fuel buses moving in dedicated lanes at high speeds. Not just clean and well-designed bus stations, ticketing and passenger information boards, route maps etc. All these are of course important and need to be executed to the highest standard possible, but this is only part of the total pict...

Just came across a website for Pune Traffic and Trasportation Forum. Seems to be a good collection of the information about traffic and transportation in the context of Pune city. So thought of putting together few sites that I feel could be useful for interested people: Pune Traffice Police Save Pune Traffic Movement Pune Traffic and Trasportation Forum Kum. Rajshree Parmar Memorial Foundation

सध्या सत्ताधारी पक्षाला 'जलद बस सेवे'चे श्रेय पदरात पाडून घेण्यापलीकडे काहिच दिसत नाही आहे. 'BRT' सेवा अपूर्णावस्थेत चालू करून त्यांनी आपली टिमकी वाजवलीच आहे. परंतु आता त्याच्यामुळे होणार्‍या अपघाताची जबाबदारी कोण घेणार आहे? काल रात्री 'BRT' च्या मार्गावरून भरधाव जाणार्‍या 'PMT' ने एका तरुणाला धडक दिल्याने त्याचा जागीच मृत्यु झाला. 'BRT' साठी वेगळा मार्ग असल्याने त्या वेगात जाणारच, परंतु, त्या मार्गावरुन 'PMT'ने जाऊ नये अशीच माफक अपेक्षा आहे. 'BRT' साठीचा मार्ग पूर्णपणे सुरक्षित झाल्याशिवाय बस सेवा सुरु करायलाच नको होती. कुठलीही योजना चालू करणे सोपे असते, परंतु त्याची बरोबर आणि योग्य अंमलबजावणीसाठी संयम आणि नियोजन लागते, ते सत्ताधार्‍यांकडे आहे का? Ref: http://esakal.com/esakal/12052006/FA9D2F32D9.htm

Some interesting topics are being discussed about the traffic problems we are facing. There are many such cities which face traffic congestion everyday. There are many traffic experts working day and night to resolve the problems. The issue seems to be really hot in the media these days. Recently PMC inaugurated the BRT project (Bus Rapid Transit) in Pune which is projected as one of the solutions for increasing traffic problems. I am, personally, of the opinion that BRT won't change the situation much. The reasons being: It needs a dedicated traffic lane in each direction. So this puts limitation on how many roads we can deploy BRT, given the situation that space is expensive (as against the digital space which is almost free these days). Major traffic travels in the direction of the core parts of the city where the roads are much narrow and there's no scope for road expansion There's a limitation on number of passangers that can travel in one direction through bus. We usu...