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(ARCHIVE) Vol. XX No. 14, November 1-15, 2010
Another lesson from Ahmadabad
(Reader Ramaswamy Pattabhiraman forwarded this mail he received from a friend. ­Perhaps our City and State transport authorities should take a look at what's happening in Ahmadabad.)

Despite a four-wheeler and a couple of two-wheelers parked at his residence, Manubhai Dhruva prefers to take the public transport. Ask him the reason and the 78-year-old retired English lecturer answers with a smile, “It takes me a good 10-15 minutes less to travel by bus than by my own vehicle.” He is talking about the Ahmadabad Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS).

I.P. Gautam, Municipal Commissioner, Ahmadabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), and Chairman, Ahmadabad Janmarg Limited (AJL), a special purpose vehicle set up for BRTS, said, “To tap the success of the project after almost ten months, we recently interviewed a group of doctors at Civil Hospital who used to commute by cars. The results were quite encouraging. Ever since they began commuting on BRTS and the feeder buses, they have been able to save 70 per cent time and 50 per cent conveyance cost.”

He added, “We gradually intend to move from the less congested areas in Ahmadabad where we have been highly successful to highly congested areas in some of the eastern parts of the city. Moreover, the aim behind the project is to reduce the use of private vehicles, reduce congestion and increase use of public transport.”

Such has been the success of the Ahmadabad BRTS that the project has caught the fancy of not just the local commuters but of several nations. Representatives of countries like Tanzania, Lagos, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia have visited the city to study the system.

Today, Ahmadabad’s BRTS, officially known as ‘Janmarg’, offers commuters an average speed of 27 km per hour – one of the highest among public road transport in the country. Its dedicated corridor and bus stations running through the middle of the road offer commuters easy access to both sides of the road.

“Not only have we won some global awards like the Best Sustainable Transport Award and the Best Mass Rapid Transit System Award, but we have also caught the attention of other countries who now want to study and adopt the success of Janmarg. The project’s success has put Ahmadabad and Gujarat on the global map,” says Shivanand Swamy, associate professor, CEPT University, and team leader of the BRTS project.

The BRTS has also been successful in tapping private vehicle owners and users. When its services were launched in October 2009, Janmarg saw about 22 per cent, 21 per cent and zero per cent of two-wheeler, three-wheeler and four-wheeler users respectively move from these private vehicles to the new public transport. After almost ten months, the shift has risen to 24.5 per cent, 23.5 per cent and two per cent, respectively.

“We have already provided parking facilities at major BRTS bus stations and traffic junctions to encourage people to park their two-wheelers and four-wheelers and opt for BRTS for faster commuting,” adds Gautam. What’s more, AJL is planning to build at least four major parking zones to encourage two-wheeler and four-wheeler users to shun their vehicles for BRTS.

While Janmarg’s Phase one was completed in June 2009, the project was commercially launched only on October 14, 2009. Its basics were a detailed project report (DPR) prepared by CEPT University, the Ahmadabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), led by Municipal Commissioner I.P. Gautam who took the initiative to follow the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) guidelines on urban mobility and announced the BRTS project in 2005-06. With the project being approved in November 2006 at an investment of Rs 981.45 crore, the work on BRTS commenced in 2007 for the first phase of 12.5 km from RTO to Pirana, with around Rs. 492.39 crore being spent, through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) called the Ahmadabad Janmarg Limited (AJL). To boost its popularity, authorities offered free rides to commuters for the first three months. Moreover, special rides for prominent businessmen, doctors, students, politicians, religious leaders, and senior citizens were organised.

Other cities, like New Delhi and Pune, are building dedicated corridors for such BRTS routes. But what makes the Ahmadabad BRTS stand apart? “The launch of such systems in other countries as well as other cities in India allowed us not to repeat some of their mistakes. The project also saw a leadership in the state and local government that was more professional and eager to implement sans the bureaucracy hurdles. Add to that, people involved in the project saw it as their own initiative rather than the government’s. Not just other countries, but also other BRTS projects like Pune and Indore, now intend to adopt the Ahmadabad Janmarg model since the 914.4 mm high floor diesel buses from Tata, and bus stations in the middle of the corridor, offer a walk-in-walk-out experience,” states Swamy.

 

In this issue

Visions of Chennai 2020: Speakers paint
pictures for the few
Lessons from Seoul on river restoration
Another lesson from Ahmadabad
Two Anniversaries: When air mail came to Madras
Two Anniversaries: 75 years of stock broking
Other stories

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