Ghaziabad authority signs pact with agency for devising ‘mobility plan’ to improve city traffic flow - Hindustan Times
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Ghaziabad authority signs pact with agency for devising ‘mobility plan’ to improve city traffic flow

Hindustan Times | By, Ghaziabad
Feb 03, 2018 11:21 PM IST

The plan aims to improve traffic movement, reduce origin to destination travel time and suggest improvements in the existing infrastructure. It will be submitted to the authority within nine months

The Ghaziabad agencies have finally felt the need for improving the city’s chaotic traffic conditions. The Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) for preparing a ‘comprehensive mobility plan’ for the city.

The Central Road Research Institute study aims to put the city in ‘category B’, which means that the traffic movement in the city is within reasonable limits, with a waiting time of 20 seconds at intersections.(Sakib Ali/HT Photo)
The Central Road Research Institute study aims to put the city in ‘category B’, which means that the traffic movement in the city is within reasonable limits, with a waiting time of 20 seconds at intersections.(Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The plan aims to improve traffic movement, reduce origin-to-destination travel time and suggest improvements in the existing infrastructure. It will be submitted to the authority within nine months.

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The CRRI will suggest improvement measures to the GDA and the authority will implement these to improve the existing traffic scenario. The first part of the plan, the short-term plan, will be submitted within six months while the long-term plan will be submitted within nine months.

“The CRRI will prepare the inception report, draft report and the final report and will submit these to the GDA. We will work on the suggested measures and see to it that they are implemented to benefit city commuters,” said Ritu Maheshwari, vice-chairperson, GDA.

The officials said such a plan is needed as a condition of the new Metro policy is that any approval of the detailed project reports for the Metro corridor is conditional on a comprehensive mobility plan of the area.

In 2008, too, the GDA had hired CRRI to prepare a similar plan but the non-implementation of the plan by the Ghaziabad agencies nullified the effect of having such a plan in the first place.

“The implementation is to be done by local agencies. On our part, we will submit the plan within the stipulated time frame and suggest measures to streamline traffic. Since there have been major infrastructure changes in Ghaziabad, a new plan will take a comprehensive view and suggest improvement measures accordingly,” said professor Satish Chandra, director, CRRI.

At present, the Ghaziabad city has a registered base of nearly nine lakh vehicles, not to mention the thousands of vehicles that enter the city via national highways, state highways and district roads. The traffic scenario is such that it has overburdened the roads, which are grappling with encroachments and unauthorised parking.

“Ideally, the short-term part of the plan is viable for four to five years and then it needs to be upgraded. But, we will suggest changes in traffic intersections and highlight deficiencies in design and infrastructure. The corrective measures, when implemented by the agencies, will considerably reduce vehicular pollution as well,” said Subhash Chand, principal scientist, traffic engineering & safety division, CRRI.

During the last decade, the city has added several flyovers, an elevated road, a link road, grade separators, traffic rotaries and underpasses, but despite all this, congestion continues to be a perennial problem.

The CRRI study will focus on traffic volume, origin-destination survey, accident survey, parking, inventory survey, intermediate transport system and traffic signalling systems in Ghaziabad. For this, the different Ghaziabad agencies will also share data with the CRRI.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Peeyush Khandelwal writes on a range of issues in western Uttar Pradesh – from crime, to development authorities and from infrastructure to transport. Based in Ghaziabad, he has been a journalist for almost a decade.

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