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Tuesday , 26 March 2024

Taking the Right Turn

 What is BEST’s role in the mobility plan execution of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation?

Brihanmumbai-Municipal-CorporationThe Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has prepared a comprehensive mobility plan (CMP) for 2034 to decongest the city’s traffic and to provide better infrastructure to the citizens. The CMP has suggested that city should review and upgrade its transport investment plans and priorities every five years. The study has also suggested several other measures and suggestions along with immediate need for constructing the missing links to connect two separate areas, need for integration of different modes and common ticketing among various existing public transport systems.

The BMC’s comprehensive mobility plan has suggested corridors for exclusive bus lanes till the year 2019. It proposes to demarcate lanes to be used only by BEST buses. The civic body has studied several aspects like population, employment and done a travel demand analysis.

Two of the eight suggested lanes are for city areas, namely a 5km stretch on Lala Lajpatrai Marg and a 3.4km stretch on Madame Cama Road. Four exclusive bus lanes have been suggested on roads in the western suburbs like Western Express Highway from Bandra-Dahisar, a 5km stretch of Swami Vivekananda Road from Oshiwara Depot to Mith Chowky, 3.8km Bandra Kurla Complex Road and 10.7km Jogeshwari Vikrohli Link Road (JVLR). Two lanes have also been suggested for the eastern suburbs, on the Eastern Express Highway (Sion-Mulund) of 19.2km and Ghatkopar Mankhurd Link Road of 4km. BEST also operate buses in Mira road, Bhayander, Thane and Navi Mumbai areas, we will interact with them too and give suggestions according to our requirements.

Central and Western Railway will have common tickets being developed by MMRDA. What about integrating?

Currently, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is in the process of appointing a consultancy firm to implement the ‘Integrated Ticketing System’ project. The project is intended to be rolled out with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an organisation for all retail payments in India. Apart from that the MMRDA officials are in dialogue with National Common Mobility Card, a division of Union Ministry of Urban Development, for project implementation.

Once the project is ready and smart cards issued, transport services like suburban railway, metro rail, monorail and BEST buses will come under one fold for the purpose of ticketing. On rolling out the common mobility card, initial or teething problems will be looked at and subsequently there could be a possibility to include auto rickshaw, taxi, pay-andpark as well as toll payments using the same smart card. However, that will be at a much later stage.

To allow the buses to run smoothly, dedicated bus corridors are proposed. Is it possible in the city’s traffic?

It is very much possible. The roads which are available with us, should be used properly. If on a road, all the three lanes are occupied by buses then everyone gets stuck. When a bus is carrying load equivalent to 20 cars the bus should get pro rata priority on the roads. By providing dedicated corridor not only the traffic, but even environmental issues will be addressed.

We are following up vigorously with relevant departments for the dedicated corridors and we have prioritized six routes for the bus corridors. Trial runs on the first one with the MMRDA in BandraKurla Complex are already on.

The MMRDA will deploy traffic wardens to guard the dedicated bus lanes at the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) to ensure that no vehicles apart from buses enter these lanes.

BEST had carried out a pilot run on a corridor between Worli-Haji Ali. We are exploring at least five more dedicated bus lanes across the island city and the suburbs, to increase speed and frequency of buses, attract more commuters and deploy more buses on busy routes.

The stretch on Eastern Express Highway between Mulund and Vikhroli is being considered for uninterrupted bus travel. Another nearby route would be Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road, which will provide seamless connectivity to Powai and SEEPZ, besides speeding up east-west connectivity. In south Mumbai, the BEST will explore the busy CST area to carve out dedicated bus lanes along DN Road.

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