Ahmedabad BRTSTransportation like housing and food has been a necessity to human beings since centuries. In this assignment the city of Ahmedabad has been taken as a case study. Ahmedabad is considered to be the financial capital of Gujarat, a state in India. Ahmedabad accommodates more than 6 million people and is spread across an area of 466 sq km. The city has an average trip length of 5.5 kilometers. This created a need for introducing a swift mode of public transport system which can help the people of Ahmedabad to reach their destination hassle free in less time at the cheapest possible cost. To solve that problem a solution was implemented by introducing the Bus Rapid Transit System in 2009.
The picture to the left shows an example of how the introduction of the new design system in the public transport of Ahmedabad brought in impact in the congestion level of the traffic. |
Design Decision(s) |
The major challenge while implementing the new transit system in the city of Ahmedabad was to attract the people to use the public transport system and to give up or reduce the use of their private vehicles. This was a major challenge because for decades the people were habituated to the use of their private vehicles since the prior system of public transportation was not that efficient.
To cope up with that challenge the government introduced Air-conditioned buses, provided free services and rides for the first 6 months of operations, and made several marketing advertisements in the media. This worked in the favor of the new system and since 2009 till the date the BRT system in Ahmedabad has been a major success. Another major design decision was to provide a separate pathway to the buses as the average speed of the buses were designed to travel at 40km/hr. which was higher than the private vehicles. To solve that issue the designer of the project made a pathway for the buses in the middle of the road, which not only improved the efficiency of the buses but also made the street design more pedestrian friendly as compared to the prior streets. The figure below has been used to explain the difference in the street design after and before the introduction of the BRT in Ahmedabad. The BRT system not only improved the mobility but also improved the accessibility of the passengers travelling from their origin to destinations. |
Social Impact |
The project has majorly made positive impacts on the people living in the city as compared to the negatives. As given to any development project in the world, there are always a few critics to any project and so were for this project where the arguments were given that the tickets to travel in the buses would not be affordable to the low income group. For solving that issue the government made a Special Purpose Vehicle body for operations of the BRT system and made the upper cap of the ticket charged at $0.50.
The positive impacts of the design decisions of this project were plenty and as follows:
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Resources
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infrastructure/ahmedabads-brts-some-interesting- facts/slideshow/17533619.cms
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/16965/DNA_Article.pdf?sequence=1
Rizvi A., “how planning process impacts bus rapid transit outcomes: A comparison of experiences in delhi and ahmedabad, india”, Columbia University, 2014.
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/16965/DNA_Article.pdf?sequence=1
Rizvi A., “how planning process impacts bus rapid transit outcomes: A comparison of experiences in delhi and ahmedabad, india”, Columbia University, 2014.