DECREASING SPEED WILL INCREASE SAFETY

Traffic calming measures should be employed in the city to reduce accidents and check pollution level, writes Osma Manzar.
THE PRESENT traffic conditions in Delhi heighten the general fear of safety on the city roads. Apprehension Is cast over an Increasing number of private vehicles and on the reverse,, a fading out of public transport. Amidst all the chaos, there Is a compulsion to reach office/home sooner than later, resulting in daily annoyance over traffic jams in peak hours.
The facts of the matter are, however, rather surprising. It has been noted, that no city In the world having a 10 mIllion population has so few vehicles and such broad roads as Delhi has. Most cities across the world have a maximum average speed of not more than 10 to 13 km per hour In rush hours within the city precincts. Whereas, Delhi’s average Irafflc speed is no less than 15-17 km per hour, on the same parametres. Unlike any other city, the cars in Delhi run as fast as 80 to 90 km per hour, between two red lights. But Japan, Unit ed States, Russia and all European countries do not allow more than 50 to 60km per hour speed inside the city.
The number of vehicles in Delhi is few and the density of traffic Is very thin, as compared to any metropolitan city in the world. Says Dr Dinesh Mohan, Professor and Head of the Centre for Biomedical Engineering (CBE), IIT Delhi, who has spedalised in Safety, “All those concerned about traffic systems in our city are unscientific and they just show the preoccupation of rich people driving fast—whereas, a majority of. the people in cities, do not have any facffity like cars. As long as we continue with the policy to increase speed, there will be no solution.”
Recently, CBE-IIT Delhi with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Safety Technology, have come out with 500 copies of a booklet called, Introduction to Traffic Calming, prepared and researched by Rajesh Pate!, Geetam Tiwarl and Dinesh Mohan, all from UT Delhi. The booklet has useful Illustrations on traffic calming measures. Copies of the booklet are being sent to planner designers, PWD, MCD and the Transport Department.
According to Mohan, the Western nations concentrated on improving mobility and speed till the 1970s. In the last 25 years, the societal demand for safety and a clean environment has forced the planners to question their earlier assumption about the so-called economic benefits of higher speed. Some studies also show that as road capacities are increased in urban areas, people change their travel patterns and congest the higher capacity roads. Some experts even claim that it Is actually foolish to plan for average speed of more than 15-20 km per hour on city roads.
The current thinking is that roads in cities should be design ed such that vehicles a not allowed to operate at a speed greater than 40-50 km per hour. This makes the traffic move with less acceleration and deceleration, while average speed remains around 15-20 km per hour. This Is call ed “traffic calming”. Explains Mohan, “it is a simple science that if there is variation of velocity, you have more conificts.”
Experience shows that when traffic calming principles are used In road designs, accidents and pollution reduce and neighbourhood become more livable. In a slower traffic, it is easier for a pedestrian to cross roads, and furthermore, having an adequate floating speed, “flyover and other such things are not needed.”
Indian traffic can typically be characterised as a heterogeneous traffic, having a mix of both motorised and non-motorised modes. ‘Where the small and medium cities have predominantly slower modes of trans port like, bicycles, rickshaws and animal carts, the larger cities enjoy “intermediate public transport” (IPT), public trans port and personal cars, two wheelers, beside bicycles.
According to the booklet, non-motorised modes (NMT), which varies from pedestrian to bicycles, constitute a significant share of the total traffic in Indian cities, varying from 30 to 70 per cent at the peak hours.
“Every motorised public transport trip involves access trip by NMT at each end. Thus NMT, including walking, continue to play a very important role in meeting the travel demand in Indian cities.”
Asserts Mohan, “The existing road designs are not able to meet the conflicting needs of various modes.”
“There is an urgent need to redesign our urban spaces. It requires re-ordering of transportation priorities. There is a need to safely accommodate pedestrians and cyclists on city streets without shunting them to inferior paths,” says Dinesh. Interestingly, pedestrian sub ways, which is considered by our so-called planners as providing a lot of relief to our pedestrians, is nothing but an illusion. Subways, as a matter of fact, are not at all required in any kind of traffic designing. It is dangerous for women and not viable for the elderly and children, while the disabled cannot even use it. Thus, 30 per cent of our population, which includes children, disabled and the old, may not use subways. “Except in captive areas, sub ways are never recommended, moreover it is very expensive,” says Mohan.
Also, the international research experience suggests, that when maximum motorised vehicles’ speed are kept below 30 km ph, the incidence of pedestrian and bicycle fatalities drops dramatically. “So, unless we have separate cycle lanes, there is no way we can control buses. Cycle is good for students—it is non-polluting, occupies very little space and good for health.” On the other hand, it is cheaper for the MCD to provide cycle lanes than not providing the same and paying heavy price in terms of fatalities.
Meanwhile, an efficient availability of public transport always helps in reducing the number of private vehicles, especially two-wheelers. “Ironically,” says Mohan, “Two- wheelers are the most inefficient mode of transportation.” For transporting each passenger a scooter pollutes the air 5,200 times more than a bus and the probability of dying, for a person, riding a scooter Is 20 times higher than a passenger travelling on a bus. In terms of occupying space, five scooters occupy the same space on a Delhi road as a bus. Therefore, by taking 50 scooters off the road, space for 10 buses are freed.
After all, what about policing the traffic? Is being generally perceived that our traffic police Is not as vigilant as they should be. However, Dinesh Mohan claims that more than 20 years of his direct interaction with the DCP Traffic proves that, ‘it is not that they have not been interested in the job but that it is not considered to be an important department. They do not have enough man power to handle the total traffic, nor do they have any professionals.”
His words bear out the truth. There is not a single police in the department who had sped alised In traffic. Apart from the current DCP Traffic, who has developed a personal interest in the traffic system for the last 10 years, most of the DCPs who had so far been appointed in traffic, happened to be transfer red from different beats such as crime, and then again transferred to a different beat. The Government has no such cadre where the police can be specialised in traffic.
Says Mohan, “To check traffic violations there must be an arrangement of hundreds of traffic police.” It has now been internationally proved that checking people for violation s—like overstepping the stopline or zebra crossing—neither improves safety nor the traffic Pile.
Rather, “We should have at least 200 mobile traffic guardians to check moving violations,” advises the safety specialist.