In order to handle the complex traffic management system of the national Capital where traffic snarls are reported every now and then during the day, the Delhi Traffic Police have undertaken a multi-pronged approach to deal with the choc-a-block situation. In comparison to the fixed road length, the vehicular movement has exponentially grown over the past five decades.
Over the past many years, Delhi roads have seen not only experienced an increase in the number of vehicles but also in the types of vehicles.
At present, there are 17 types of vehicles which occupy the space on Delhi roads. Ranging from DTC buses to private buses, the list includes motorcycles, bicycles, bikes, cars, High Goods Vehicle, low Goods Vehicle, cycle rickshaws, bullock carts, hand carts, TSR (three seater auto rickshaw), trucks, mini tempos also known as Vikram, the new entrant commonly in use is e-rickshaws. With these many vehicles blocking the city roads, the problem of traffic management indeed becomes a complex issue to deal with.
Mostly under attack by the common man who feels stranded in the traffic jams for hours, the Delhi Traffic Police said that their sole responsibility is fulfilling the twin principle of handling the movement of traffic as well as issuing challans to vehicle owners who break traffic rules.
Talking to The Pioneer, Ajay Kashyap, Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic) said, “To deal with the traffic situation in Delhi, the onus to handle the traffic lies solely on the Delhi Traffic Police. However, the department works on fulfilling two objectives: prosecution and managing the movement of traffic. Issues like frequent breakdowns of buses and other vehicles result from multiple factors like lack of engineering and planning on the part of land-owning agencies such as DDA, MCD, PWD, CPWD and in cases of maintaining highways like NH8 and NH24, the duty lies with the NHAI. Therefore, to deal with the traffic mess of the city, we have to come together and work towards strengthening the road infrastructure along with the proper implementation of traffic norms.”
Talking about the long term solutions to deal with the frequent traffic jams in the city, another senior traffic police officer said, “We have identified nearly 77 stretches which face traffic congestion in the city. Out of these total 77 stretches, 28 corridors witnessing bottleneck situation have been identified and the Delhi Traffic Police department has prepared proposals on how to ease off traffic in these congested roads.”
“We have prepared a number of proposals about building under pass bridges or roads near the arterial roads of the Ring Road and the Outer Ring Road to ease out congestion. The traffic police is undermined in terms of staff shortage yet we are working round the clock and updating about traffic jam updates on social media sites such as facebook and twitter,” said a senior traffic officer.
Majority of the traffic starts building up at the national highways which witnesses massive entry of heavy loaded trucks. This in turn has a cascading effect on the traffic across various parts of the city. It is the traffic jams on Ring Road and Outer Ring Road which affects the movement of traffic on circular parts of the city.
The volume of vehicles in the city touched approximately 1 crore last year. With the rapid rise in the volume of vehicles moving in the city, the road length is four times less than the volume of traffic on the Delhi roads. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, there is no scope of lateral growth in roads. In light of the rapid increase in the volume of cars and 16 other types of vehicles in the city, the number of motor vehicles on the road has increased up to 50 times in the past five decades (from 1971-2011), while the road length is more or less static resulting in increased vehicle density.