Expert Speak Urban Futures
Published on Oct 09, 2019
BRTS recently received its first major setback in India, with the city of Pune abandoning its BRTS project by allowing private vehicles to enter the BRT lanes on certain routes. However, this may not be the end of BRTS just yet.
Off track BRTS: Is Intelligent Traffic Monitoring an answer?

The upcoming decade will see an investment of ₹700 billion by Indian government at the national, state and city levels in providing sustainable transport access to over 58% of its urban population. A significant portion of these funds are earmarked to building over 1,000 kilometers of Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) network in 28 cities, with dedicated lanes and infrastructure.

A BRTS uses buses on city lanes dedicated only for bus transit. As BRTS provides buses exclusive right of way, commuters reach their destinations quickly. Dedicated bus lanes and unique bus station infrastructure have made public transport receive iconic status in cities like Curitiba (Brazil), Istanbul (Turkey) and Ahmedabad (India). Despite this, BRTS recently received its first major setback in India, with the city of Pune abandoning its BRTS project by allowing private vehicles to enter the BRT lanes on certain routes. However, this may not be the end of BRTS just yet.

According to urban experts, the problem with BRTS implementation in India lies in the design, discipline and in its struggle to meet passenger demands. Here, we analyse the current broken links in the BRTS system and see how upcoming digital mobility solutions may provide a complete answer to the challenge of BRTS implementation.

The upcoming decade will see an investment of ₹700 billion by Indian government at the national, state and city levels in providing sustainable transport access to over 58% of its urban population.

Let us look at few major issues that crop up for the implementation of BRTS:

1. Lane enforcement

Ever since the start of BRTS operations in India, cities have witnessed rampant encroachment by non-BRTS vehicles on exclusive bus lanes to move faster than the rest of the traffic on mixed-traffic lanes. The major reasons for these offences are often that traffic fines are not large enough to deter offenders. Manual fine collection introduces the human factor, leading to malpractices in enforcement.

2. Design

A typical cross section of a BRT lane looks like this.

Figure 1: Road cross section with BRT at median, Curtiba, Brazil.

Source: C40 Cities

BRT systems were started in Curitiba, Brazil, where the then architect-mayor Jaime Lerner was focused on the design of stations and making public transport affordable and appealing to all. As seen in the picture, pedestrian access to the BRT station is maintained at grade, i.e. the pedestrian will not have to climb up or down to access the bus station. This focus on station and lane design, which was the hallmark of Lerner’s work, was rarely replicated in later efforts in other countries, especially in India.

The picture below provides an example of a BRTS in India. As seen in the picture, the bus stop has restricted access as the pedestrians have to climb down into the subway tunnel to reach the bus stop and back. At several BRTS in India, poor station design and broken footpath connectivity at intersections makes getting to the BRTS stations difficult. Lack of traffic signal enforcement and pedestrian oversight at intersections makes crossing to the BRTS stations dangerous and may lead to casualties.

Figure 2: Grade separated access to BRTS, Pune, India.

Source: Hindustan Times

3. Volume of BRT traffic:

Though financial difficulties of urban local bodies make maintaining fleet size tough, predicting the number of vehicles required on a particular route is also a factor of ever-changing city dynamics. In Indian cities, commuter patterns vary by time of the day, festivals and physical obstructions, and road diversions for construction or upgradation of infrastructure. Static routes don’t factor in these changes to the cityscape and may keep plying buses on obsolete routes decreasing BRT revenues further.

However, there is still hope for a fully functioning BRTS due to recent policy changes such as the Cities such as Delhi and Mumbai have recently also proposed the implementation of Intelligent Traffic Management Systems (ITMS). The recent amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act have enforced hefty fines on traffic violators. With mandatory FASTags, enforcement of these fines will become possible as each vehicle will be connected to the national traffic system through a series of RFID-enabled gantries and trackers. These two changes will help to maintain traffic discipline in cities, especially in BRTS corridors. With the passage and implementation of the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act and the impending enforcement of FASTag technologies in all vehicles by 1 December, the year 2020 may just see marked improvements in the functioning of BRTS in the country.

There is still hope for a fully functioning BRTS due to recent policy changes such as the Cities such as Delhi and Mumbai have recently also proposed the implementation of Intelligent Traffic Management Systems (ITMS).

While ITMS are being used the world over for applications like intersection control, traffic monitoring, revenue collection and providing users data about public transit services, the few instances of ITMS implemented in India have given mixed results.

According to a group of researchers at IIT Bombay, to increase the efficiency of ITMS systems in the Indian context, ITMS should be adapted to Indian road situations. The issues of lane crossing, chaotic pile up of vehicles near intersections and road obstructions are unique to developing countries.

Figure 3: Typical ITMS system.

Source: MDPI

Recent advancement in tracking and sensor technologies make ITMS better adopted to Indian roads. These techniques use radio frequency identification (RFID), motion detection and GPS tracking to keep tabs on lane discipline and traffic control. The RFID scanner seamlessly scans each vehicle’s FASTag and its rear number plate. If the vehicle is a non-BRTS vehicle, a hefty fine will be deducted as soon as it enters the BRTS lane, and for each subsequent lane entrance. Emergency vehicles may be exempted from this charge.

Alternatives for BRTS solutions may be explored by cities with ITMS, such as creation of dynamic and dedicated bus lanes. A dedicated bus lane, if enforced using an ITMS system, will require only minor tactical changes to existing city streets.

Going further, the ITMS also have real-time traffic applications for the entire transport network in the city:

  1. ITMS will capture data from moving vehicles, send this data to sedentary gantries to collect and process information – for the FASTag technology, this time interval is less than 10 minutes. The gantries capture details linked to the vehicle such as registration, axle length, class of vehicle, insurance details, etc. Once this information is analysed by a web-linked database, then the subsequent charges or taxes are collected from the vehicle.
  2. The ITMS situated at several key junctions across the city will provide real-time traffic data for road closures, obstructions and collisions. The ITMS does this through a coordinated system of traffic cameras, motion and infrared sensors connected to a central control system. Users connected to the ITMS via traffic apps like Google Maps on their mobiles, through a car GPS or through apps like M-Indicator and Ridlr will get these real-time updates on their preferred routes and will use diversions suggested by the app. This will provide options to users to avoid congested routes and will ease congestion in the city.
  3. Alternatives for BRTS solutions may be explored by cities with ITMS, such as creation of dynamic and dedicated bus lanes. A dedicated bus lane, if enforced using an ITMS system, will require only minor tactical changes to existing city streets.

These upcoming changes in the transportation sector, if implemented effectively, will prove to be a boon for the revival of BRTS in India’s cities. This will help to realise the promise of BRTS to provide accessible and affordable public transport to people, at the same time decongesting Indian roads.

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Contributor

Amruta Ponkshe

Amruta Ponkshe

Amruta Ponkshe was Associate Fellow with the Sustainable Development Programme at ORF. Amruta works on mobility and urban infrastructure issues with a special focus on ...

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