[sustran] Re: "So much for green transport."

[Karthik Rao-Cavale]

So essentially the argument is that since Delhi has more car traffic, the
city cannot have dedicated bus lanes (no point going into the argument of
whether they constitutes  BRT or not. That debate is futile and
meaningless.)

But I would like to see the weighting of bus and car trips in CRRI's study.
Their claims to expertise have no relevance to the value judgments they
made regarding the assignment of these weights.

On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Alok Jain <alok.priyanka at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Delhi BRT Saga continues. Instead of fixing problems with BRT,
> everybody busy pointing fingers.
>
>
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/CRRI-explained-why-Ahmedabad-BRT-works/articleshow/15133172.cms?intenttarget=no
>
> CRRI explained why Ahmedabad BRT works
> Rumu Banerjee, TNN | Jul 25, 2012, 03.46AM IST
> Article
> Comments
>
>
> inShare
>
> Read More:CRRI|Central Road Research Institute|BRTS|Ahmedabad BRT
> Works|Ahmedabad BRT
>
> 0
>
>
>
> NEW DELHI: In its desperation to save its ill-conceived and poorly
> executed BRT project, Delhi government is now shooting the messenger. It
> has not only questioned the study conducted by the Central Road Research
> Institute (CRRI) but also launched a scathing attack on the institute
> itself.
>
> Falling back on its worn-out argument of a rich-poor divide, it called car
> owners "arrogant" and accused those who conducted the study of ignoring bus
> commuters.
>
> But berating car owners will in no way make the public transport system
> any better - for that governance has to improve — just as launching a
> tirade against CRRI will not make a dent in the organisation's reputation.
> CRRI director, Dr S Gangopadhyay, told TOI: "CRRI has been researching on
> road and transport solutions for decades. If anyone has questions about the
> methodology used for the study, we will be happy to answer. Our report has
> used international norms employed in such studies."
>
> Gangopadhyay's reaction comes in the wake of the government getting stung
> by CRRI's finding that "no BRT" was the best option. It has been promptly
> dubbed "anti-poor" by the government. It may help to recall that the agency
> had been hired by Delhi government on the suggestion of the court, which
> had rejected the transport department's plan to hire RITES for the study.
> Incidentally, RITES in a 2004 study of transport solutions for Delhi had
> recommended 34 BRT corridors. Preparation of the CRRI report, which is
> based not only on a week-long experimental trial run but also on a series
> of field surveys, culminated with a simulation exercise. The simulation was
> of the traffic scenario on the 5.8km stretch in 2015 with and without BRT,
> keeping the existing traffic volume as the base, factoring in an annual
> increase in traffic of 5-7%.
>
> The study found that doing away with BRT would result in a decrease of 48%
> in travel time, and a substantial 61% decrease in delay on the stretch.
> Compare this to the option of continuing with BRT, which would result in a
> further increase in travel time of 13% in 2015 as well as an increase of
> 15% in delays on the corridor.
>
> Sources said the surveys undertaken — including user perception, occupancy
> studies, pedestrian studies, passenger flows and saturation flow studies —
> show that BRT is not working at its optimum at present. Said a transport
> department official, "There is no denying that there are traffic issues on
> the stretch. Unlike the Ahmedabad BRT, the Delhi BRT is after all an open
> corridor."
>
> It's a point that the CRRI report has also underlined. It observes that
> the proportion of cars is almost 1.5 times that of Ahmedabad on the motor
> vehicle lane of Delhi BRT, which contributes to the lower journey speeds.
> This, says the report, is because the "width of the available MV lane is
> only 7-8m in either direction of travel". This width is less than the 10m
> width available for each direction of travel before BRT was conceived.
>
> The report adds: "Since the Ahmedabad BRTS is a closed system, the
> commercial travel speeds are much higher. The bus composition is about 3%
> of total traffic in both cases. The observed average speed of buses on
> Ahmedabad BRT section varies between 22-25kmph (CEPT Ahmedabad) which is
> much higher than that of Delhi BRTS - 13-15kmph)."
>
> The last fact seems to have been completely overlooked by Delhi
> government, which has been citing the success of the Ahmedabad BRT to
> continue with its floundering experiment.
>
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