Bengaluru traffic: Traffic police draws measures to avoid congestions during peak hours

Bengaluru traffic advisory: Heavy vehicular traffic movement on ORR will be banned between 7am and 10pm, effective next week.

The members of Outer Ring Road Companies Association (ORRCA) met Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar on Saturday and discussed a plan to avoid traffic congestion during the peak hours on the city's ORR stretch. The unprecedented congestion on September 27 at East Bengaluru left the traffic management questioned once again in the IT capital.

Vehicles stranded in a massive traffic congestion in Outer Ring Road corridor in Bengaluru on Sep 27. (Mahadevapura Task Force)

Bengaluru’s joint commissioner of police for traffic MN Anucheth also joined the meeting and charted out a plan to reduce the traffic snarls in future. On social media platform X, ORRCA said, “Productive discussion with @blrcitytraffic @Jointcptraffic Sri MN Anucheth IPS with ORRCA leadership team. We agreed on a few measures which will be put into effect next week. These measures will help us reduce traffic congestion.”

Here are a few measures:

1. Heavy vehicular traffic movement on ORR will be banned between 7am and 10pm, effective next week.

2. Traffic police will discuss with major Tech Park developers on ORR to review the feasibility of enabling shared transport for each major tech park. This is expected to reduce the fleet size as well as increase the occupancy of vehicles used for employees' commutation.

3. Advisory will be issued to companies on ORR to stagger their work time, so we don’t have a heavy flow of traffic during the traditional peak hours of ORR.

4. Reintroducing the bus lane on ORR to keep the BMTC buses running without interrupting the other vehicles on the road.

According to police officials, the traffic jam on September 27 was due to the a long weekend with several people heading out of the city. While September 28 was a public holiday due to Eid Milad, a statewide bandh was also called on September 29 over the Cauvery issue, followed by October 2, which is again a public holiday as it marks Gandhi Jayanti.

The vehicular traffic on Wednesday was twice the normal for a regular day. Typically, Wednesdays see a vehicle count of 150,000 to 200,000. However, on September 27, the number of vehicles on the road surged to a staggering 350,000 by 7.30 pm, said Bengaluru police.