Strengthening public transport system in the city and developing public-private partnership to reduce traffic snarls were stressed by stakeholders of Patna traffic system at a daylong conference on "Patna traffic management - Bottlenecks and solutions" held here on Wednesday.
Exhorting citizens to cooperate in the traffic improvement mechanism, IG (Special branch), Bihar Police, Dr Paresh Saxena, said, "Youth groups can be trained to divert traffic at intersections or in colonies, students can manage traffic near their schools on roster system and shopkeepers can depute men to manage parking at market places as a small initiative to manage traffic."
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Many short-term plans to clear the chock-a-block situation were proposed at the conference. "Road surface improvement, signalizing intersections, putting in place circulation plans such as one-way streets or vehicular segregation, traffic calming techniques, developing and barricading footpaths and foot overbridges and establishment of a single-window traffic management centre can cater to many problems," said Ishita Chauhan, an urban transport expert, Institute of Urban Transport, adding that a cost-effective and systemic public transport system was the need of the hour. "Since Patna is a longitudinal city, a one-kilometre radius zone on the arterial roads would cover the entire city," she said.
In a city where over 60,000 vehicles hit the roads every year, according to additional SP, Patna, Ashok Kumar Sinha, there is acute paucity of manpower to deal with the state of affairs as nearly 50% posts of traffic policemen are vacant. "Lack of permanent parking places for autorickshaws are a major trouble," he said, adding that an electronic system of traffic regulation could help to some extent. The traffic cops were trying to revive the lights at Dak Bungalow crossing for the purpose.
Elaborating on the ambitious metro rail project as a solution for increased traffic, Abhay Negi, DGM, RITES Limited, the consultancy company preparing a feasibility study and Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project, said, "Currently, public transport is only 12% of the total vehicular movement. The proposed metro rail would cover 50-70% of traffic in peak hours, if integrated with the para transit modes of transportation."
Pleading for collaboration between "education, engineering and enforcement" to improve the traffic bottlenecks, commissioner, Patna division, E L S N Bala Prasad, said the suggestions made at the conference would be taken into consideration.
The event was organized by Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Also present on the occasion were Patna Mayor Afzal Imam, DSPs (traffic) Raj Vansh Singh and Vinay Kumar, St Xavier's High School principal Fr Jacob O A and ICC resident director Kamal Sahi, among others.
