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Urban Transport

Urban transport
The urban transport is exclusively provided by the road transport. There are a number of very critical problems in Urban Transport Sector which need to be given serious consideration as enumerated below:-

(1) Urban Transport has to operate under two very powerful but dichotomous forces. On one hand is the most indigent segment of the society, which cannot afford to pay full cost of urban transport services. On the other hand there is a very vocal group of middle income group who demand quality service and can afford to pay for it. Considering the extremely capital intensive nature of the services and the severe financial constraints facing the country, it is not possible to provide uniform quality services for all users. The most viable course would therefore be to have a two-tier system whereby:

(a) Government responsibility is limited to providing urban transport to the most indigent segment of the society and on un-remunerative routes at a subsidized cost. The emphasis should, therefore, be on quantity rather than quality, possible use of Bus-Train technology developed by National Transport Research Centre (NTRC).

(b) The requirements of middle and upper middle income group should be met exclusively by the private sector providing quality services and charging full cost of operation.

(c) Government however must retain effective control with regard to safety and quality of service.

(2) Regarding the urban mass transit systems, the critical examination of options has revealed as under :-

(a) The traffic problems of any large metropolitan city are spread over a number of corridors, therefore construction of small link of few kms along any one particular artery can obviously not provide any relief to the remaining areas. At least 100 km network is required to have an impact.

(b) The cost of even a very basic Subway presently is around one hundred million US dollars, which beyond the financial reach of most developing countries.
(c) There is hardly any subway system in the world which is meeting its full operating costs. The shortfalls are of the order of 50-60 percent and are met by government subsidy.
(d) Contrary to the general misconception, there is no proof of any subway system on its own eliminating the problem of surface congestion in any city of the world.
(e) The provision of even most extensive network of subway does not do away with buses, which still remain a very important mode of any large urban transport system and invariably carry more traffic than the subway.