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Session 3B - 'Road Safety in Indian Cities'
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Recommendations for safe BRT design for Indian citiesBinoy Mascarenhas, Associate, Urban Transport, EMBARQ India
BRT is emerging has emerged as a cost-effective public transportation alternative for Indian cities
Success stories like the Ahmedabad BRT have changed the question from “Why to do BRT?” to “How to do BRT?” – “What is the most appropriate kind of BRT for my city?”
BRTs are now being developed in many more cities in India, (Surat, Indore, Pune, Naya Raipur, Hubli-Dharwad, etc), with many more cities showing interest..
This decade will be the “tipping point”; with an exponential increase in BRTs, similar to the experience in other parts of the world
The context
BRT is now an established concept …
…but there are some concerns that need to be addressed
What is BRT’s impact on:
Road safety,
Local accessibility
NMT mobility
Road capacity
For BRT to gain a wider acceptance by all stakeholders, it must address these concerns
The context
In 2012 EMBARQ released a draft document on “Traffic Safety for Bus Corridors”
Background
From 2011-12, EMBARQ conducted road safety audits on BRTs (Indore, Delhi, Ahmedabad) and other public transit corridors
Road safety audits on Indian BRTs and other public transit
corridors
Recommendations for safe BRT design for
Indian cities
Many of the flagship BRTs in international cities have the following features:
Large section of the BRT on freeways
Restricted property access to such roads
Little or no pedestrians, no at-grade crossing
High speed
Long routes with large distances between stations
But why a separate document
Some examples … Bogota, Colombia
…and Istanbul, Turkey
… similarly, in Guangzhou, China
Abundant property development along the road edge
Cars are not the dominant motor-vehicle
Bicycles are not the only NMT mode
Very high pedestrian volume
Traffic discipline cannot be taken as a given
Street vendors and immovable obstacles, like utility boxes, trees, temples, etc
Auto-rickshaws as the feeder system to BRT
The Indian context is different:
Abundant road edge property development
Frequent property gates
High right / U-turn demand
High pedestrian volume and
crossing demand
Requirement for parking / waiting
area
Cars are not the dominant motor-vehicle
Safety features (such as bollards along pedestrian crossings) for cars
may not work for 2-wheelers
Safety standards for cars different for 2-wheelers
Very high pedestrian volume
High crossing demand
Need for frequent crossing
opportunites
More footpath width needed
At least in the immediate period, people will continue to flout traffic rules
Safe design is based on “how people will behave”, rather than “how people should behave”
Traffic discipline cannot be taken as a given
Bicycles are not the only NMT mode
Pedestrian crossings and bicycle lanes must be usable by all NMT modes
Street vendors and immovable obstacles
The design must be able to take into consideration, varying levels of available road width
Auto-rickshaws as the feeder system
If auto-rickshaw infrastructure is not provided for, they will make their own ad-hoc arrangements. This can be a safety concern
Data driven: Identifying the main problems through data analysis
Contextual recommendations: There cannot be one solution for all contexts: type, scale, local conditions matter!
Case-study approach: Documenting the international and Indian best-practices for various elements of the BRT
Conceptual designs: Providing conceptual designs that can be suitably adapted for a given context
Impact assessment: Assessing the impact of the design recommendations on BRT operations, road capacity, etc
The approach for this document
Some of the design recommendations
The basic midblock template
The provision of a multi-utility (MU) strip on both sides of the road to accommodate various ancillary uses – parking, street vendor space, rickshaw stand, utility boxes, etc
All other road elements to be of continuous width – the MU strip to accommodate all variations in road width
Frequent pedestrian crossing
Located at high demand areas
Clearly demarcated
Pedestrian refuge areas
Pedestrian crossing
Midblock u-turns
Provided at frequent intervals along long midblock sections
Safely combined with pedestrian crossing
Extension of the pedestrian crossing + u-turn design to accommodate the station
Midblock BRT stations
Only left turn access at minor streets
Improves safety as well as capacity for BRT and main road traffic lanes
Intersection with a minor street
The draft document has been released, and is currently under peer review
The final document will be released later this year
Status