[sustran] fwd: Mumbai mulls traffic demand management

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

The Times of India
Wed 26 April 2000

Stringent rules are mooted to rein in polluting motorists 
By Our Transport Correspondent

MUMBAI: Private vehicle owners will have to start exercising some restraint
soon if the traffic demand management system envisaged by the high court
appointed panel on vehicular pollution comes through. A scheme for control
of motorists is likely to be in place by October and is among a host of
short-term measures the panel has proposed to ease congestion and pollution
in the city.

The panel headed by transport commissioner V.M. Lal submitted its report on
Friday, recommending 101 wide-ranging, long-term, stringent measures and
norms covering all aspects of vehicular pollution, including fuel quality
and adulteration, automobile emission norms, vehicle maintenance and
traffic management.

The traffic control measures include synchronised traffic signals,
exclusive bus lanes, removal of unauthorised speed breakers and banning of
morchas.

Foremost is the traffic restraint system which will mean that private
vehicles ending with licence numbers 1 and 2 will not be allowed to ply in
the island city on Monday. Similarly, vehicles with registration numbers
ending with 3 or 4 will not be allowed to ply on Tuesday, 5 or 6 on
Wednesday, 7 or 8 on Thursday, 9 or 0 on Fridays. This will reduce the
traffic on the road by 20 per cent and will also apply to outside vehicles.

Other measures include banning of parking on arterial roads during certain
hours from June 2000, and ensuring that the Wadala truck terminus, which
has been pending for a long time, becomes functional by December. All
tourist vehicles coming from outside Mumbai will then have to stop there.

The report also calls for the setting up of three control rooms with toll
free numbers by June this year, one by the corporation and the traffic
police to take complaints on potholes, speed breakers and abandoned
vehicles. Another control room run by the motor vehicles department will
take complaints about polluting vehicles.

Initiating sudden road digging like the kind the city has seen of late
might not be so easy anymore for the corporation as the panel calls for a
high powered committee to coordinate road digging activity of different
utility services like MTNL, Mahanagar Gas, BEST and the BMC. All
encroachments should also be removed from the roads, it states.

The report acknowledges the importance of public transport, and suggests an
additional 500 air conditioned BEST buses and upgrading of rail services, a
mobile phone taxi service and a separate transport link from Haji Ali to
Nariman Point. However, the panel leaves out the details of how transport
can be improved, instead mooting a committee of transport experts and an
Urban Transport Authority to implement a proper urban transport system.

Noting that the national emission and air quality norms are a little out
dated, the panel has also made recommendations for emission norms. The
permissible limit of 65 hartridge units for diesel vehicles will be brought
down to 45 by July and the carbon monoxide emission norms for two and three
wheelers will be brought down from 4.5 percent to three per cent.
Continuous air quality monitoring will have to be established by January
2001, including for CO and Benzene.

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) has been given an impetus as a clean fuel. The
report has asked for customs duties, sales tax, excise, octroi to be waived
on CNG kits. To make it easier to set up CNG filling stations, the panel
recommends amendment of the development control rules and a single window
clearance system. ``CNG prices should also be kept lower than diesel
prices,'' the report suggests, and sets maximum time limits for filling in
a station. One of the most common complaints from CNG taxi drivers had been
the long wait at the stations.

The panel, which was appointed by the high court in connection with a
public interest litigation on pollution, consisted of the transport
commissioner, joint secretary of the ministry of environment and forests
Vijai Sharma, additional director general of police P.S. Pasricha,
Maharashtra Pollution Control Board engineer A.M. Deshpande, two
non-governmental organisation representatives, Debi Goenka and Zinia Khajotia.

(This is the second in a two-part series)

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© Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 2000.  
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Distributed for the purpose of education and research.

A. Rahman Paul BARTER
SUSTRAN Resource Centre
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