Planning for public transport system- case of Gwalior

Abstract

India is witnessing rapid urbanisation and motorisation. While the urban population is growing at the rate of 3.16 % per year, motor vehicles are growing at a rate of 9%. (Sharma, Jain, and Singh, 2011). Today, buses constitute less than 1% of the total registered vehicles in Indian cities (Road Transport Yearbook, 2011-12). In fact, very few Indian cities have organised, regularised and regulated public transport system. In the absence of an organised city bus service, the gap is being filled by public transport modes like 3-wheelers auto-rickshaws, Tempos and Tata magic, etc which provide public transport services (India Transport Report- Moving India to 2032, 2014). The Central Government’s recent policy initiatives, such as the 2005 Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) and the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP), 2006 aim to provide a vision and framework to promote sustainable urban transport in India. The recent recommendations of the working group on urban transport, both for the 12th Five Year Plan and the NTDPC, stress the need to improve the public transport services due to their potential of providing clean mobility and low emissions solutions. The public transport systems of the developing world is the combination of conventional forms like Buses and Rails and non conventional forms called the public transport. To Indian conditions these forms of public transport are Auto rickshaws, Cycle rickshaws, Tempos, Magic and Tongas. These forms of transport play a vital role in the urban Public Transport scenario in view of various features existing in developing World like short supply of Mass transport facility, increasing transport demand, the inherited physical network pattern of the cities the socioeconomic conditions etc. The conventional traffic and transportation theories relate only to the modern transport vehicles and little was done to understand the behavioural characteristics of the forms of transport vehicles. In this study an attempt has been made to bring out the salient features of the forms of public transport in terms of their role, importance, behaviour and their congestion effect in the urban traffic stream and attempt to bring the public transport in the main stream for small and medium towns. This study focuses on the major challenges the public transport service sector faces and the recommendations to organise and regularise the transport system in Gwalior.