‘This will facilitate integration of land use and transportation’
The Union Ministry of Urban Development has asked the State government to designate the Urban Development Department (UDD) as the nodal department for all urban transport-related matters.
The Ministry said no planned urbanisation could be successful without an effective and efficient urban transport system.
Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), which caters to the public transport requirements of Bangalore, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), North Western KRTC and North Eastern KRTC come under the Transport Department.
In a recent communiqué to the Chief Secretary, Union Urban Development Secretary Sudhir Krishna said the State UDD should also be responsible for planning land use for urban transport. Urban transport and planning should go together. However, in many States these two are segregated between the Transport Department and the UDD, he said. It had been well recognised that urban transport was the key for urban development as more than 70 per cent of the country’s GDP comes from cities.
ONLY FEW FOLLOWED
Mr. Krishna said, “It is a matter of concern that despite this being one of the conditions of reforms at the State-level under the scheme for funding of buses for urban transport under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and in spite of issuing two advisories from the Ministry to chief secretaries of all States and Union Territories earlier, only a few States — Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan — have brought urban transport under one nodal department, i.e., urban development department.”
Designating the UDD as the nodal department for urban transport was necessary for the integration of land use and transport plans as envisaged in the National Urban Transport Plan, Mr. Krishna said. With this, urban transport remains as an integral part of urban planning at all levels and cities could be planned in a holistic manner, he said.
Responding to this, a senior Transport Department official said the department would have no objection to the move. The government had to take the decision, he said.
Mr. Krishna said failure to comply with the advisory, however, would not attract any penalty. There were about 30 conditions for funding under the JNNURM. Some of them are mandatory and some, including a single agency for urban planning and transport, are desirable. Karnataka, at least, had a Directorate of Urban Land Transport to plan for urban transport under the UDD, he said.
http://www.thehindu.com
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under JNNURM
DC | S.N.V. Sudhir
(Picture for representational purpose only.)
Visakhapatnam: The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation proposed to implement an Intelligent Traffic System (ITS) as part of the Sustainable Urban Transport Project in the city for meeting future traffic needs.
Officials placed the proposal in the City Development Plan to be implemented during 2013-2020. The system is now being implemented in Indore, Mysore, Pune, Naya Raipur, and Pimpri-Chinchwad in Maharashtra, according to officials.
Increasing traffic has resulted in increased problems like traffic jams, delay, accidents, pollution, etc, that pose a potential threat to the productive efficiency of the city population. The decadal population growth of 75 pc observed between 1991-2001 in the city and the urban agglomeration is also expected to increase to 35 lakh by 2021.
The registered growth of vehicles in the city between 2000 and 2006 was also estimated at 9 pc per annum. About 4.5 lakh registered vehicles were plying on the city roads in 2007, 90 pc of which are cars and motorised two-wheeler vehicles with 3 lakh trips.
Now, the number has increased to around 6.5 lakh and the projected travel is predicted to grow to 29 lakh trips per day by 2021. The GVMC has already taken up the BRTS project with two corridors.
The Government of India, in partnership with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank and UNDP, has initiated the Sustainable Urban Transport Project. Basically, the proposed Intelligent Traffic System is aimed at the integration of ITS components into the proposed BRT system to improve travel time, accessibility, ease of use, and environmental impact.
Traffic signal prioritisation, centralised traffic control centre, surveillance and detection system with sensors and other facilities would be provided under the Rs 785-cr project.
Source-http://www.deccanchronicle.com
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Uncategorized
Lakshmi Ajay : Ahmedabad,
The CEPT University’s Centre of Excellence in Urban Transport is mulling over extending its flagship 10-week training programme for in-service professionals called “Leaders in Urban Transport Planning and Management” to international participants from next year.While outlining their two-year plan to the Centre next month, the CoE officials will submit a proposal to widen the scope of the programme that was launched last year.
The week-long programme that began on Sunday is a first-of-its-kind module in India that looks at urban transport and its management and is run jointly with the World Bank. Rs 4.3 lakh is being spent on each participant by the stakeholders.
Around 40 senior and mid-level professionals from railways, municipal corporations, urban development authorities and various state transport authorities from 25 cities will undergo a capacity-building programme at CEPT University.
“Urban transport is not only about engineering, roads and infrastructure, and operations like railways or state transport authorities, but includes footpaths, mobility and land use. Currently, there are no programmes in the country to address such issues. From next year, we propose to hold a global programme for 30 international participants. This will include an in-training programme, consisting of four modules, in which the participants will be required to spend three weeks out of their jobs at the workshop and undertake an international study tour as well,” says H M Shivanand Swamy, Executive Director of CoE Urban Transport, CEPT.
Of these participants, around eight were from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC), Surat Municipal Corporations (SMC) and AUDA. The participants are guided by five world-renowned urban transport experts and CEPT faculty on cities and their urban transport-related issues. “This year, we will be focussing on studying Hong Kong that has come up with interesting metro and transit financing schemes and accessibility measures like pedestrian-elevated corridors in detail,” adds Swamy.
For completing the programme, participants have to come up with proposals for individual projects for their respective workplaces, which they will develop within the next five months under the guidance of a mentor from the CoE. Site visits to universities and urban authorities in Honk Kong, Singapore and Seoul are also scheduled. There they will be briefed on transport innovations.
“The programme has a good mixed bag of participants from various departments like roads, railways that helped in getting many perspectives in planning urban transport for a city. We will study and compare three cities in terms of different modes of urban transport they currently have and the problems dogging them,” says Neela Munshi, Senior Town Planner at AUDA (Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority) who is one of the participants of the programme.
Established in 2009 by the Ministry of Urban Development, the CoE is supported by the AMCand. Its mandate includes capacity-building in urban transport, HR development, knowledge anagement and technical assistance and advisory.
Source-http://www.indianexpress.com
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Uncategorized
