Page 54 - TrafficInfraTech Dec-Jan 2019

PARKING
The way Chennai
Smart City is promoting
private participation
for implementing
parking management
in the city. Chennai
is hopeful to become
a first city in India to
implement technology
based on-street parking
management.
Raj Cherubal
54 December ’18 - January ’19 / TrafficInfraTech
see why it should be free; when there go mark an area and say, ‘this is where
is no free space for slums or low-cost you can park, this is where you cannot
housing, why should there be free park’”.
space to house cars?” Chennai will be implementing the
According to Datar, the authorities largest on-street parking management
are afraid of beginning parking reforms system in the world. A camera-based
because they feel that everybody is too slot-recognition system will be able to
used to the present scenario of free inform people which slots are full, and
parking for all, anytime, anywhere. where the nearest empty slot is. The
“But if we usher in parking reforms, we same vendor will also have the right to
don’t need to spend 2,000 crore rupees clamp a car parked in the wrong place.
on a coastal road because the existing “Our first challenge was to show
road space will be quite adequate for all the public that parking management
the buses which are currently deprived is actually good for everybody”, said
of space. With parking removed or Cherubal. “For example, people park
controlled, buses can definitely speed in front of shops and disappear for
up by 25%. If buses and other vehicles long hours. Prospective customers
also have 25% higher speed, 25% lesser of the shops arrive in cars, see that
vehicles are required to carry the same there is no parking near the shop, and
number of people.” leave. Shops lose business.” Parking
It is strange that while there are management will ensure that the
eight offences listed in the manual of areas outside shops are parking-free.
the traffic police, all of them have the In the intelligent parking man-
same fine. He said that we must change agement system, one will be able to
the present parking-fee structure that determine the number plate of a car
charges a certain amount per hour, as well. Hence, over time, the system
in which the minimum time-slab is will able to inform the driver that he is
one hour, to a structure that divides burning an ‘X’ amount of carbon and
the hour into 15 or 30 minutes blocks spending ‘Y’ amount of money for his
and divides the charge accordingly. daily commute. It will be able to suggest
This will discourage long-term parking. to him that taking a bus for the same
Cars should also be classified into journey will save him ‘Z’ rupees every
those more than or less than 1.95 day, and also offer a discount on the
metre length; only 25 of 140 existing bus pass.
models are longer, and are luxury “Parking is like a commodity”,
vehicles. They can be easily identified Cherubal concluded. “If you price it too
and a 10-rupee surcharge or premium low, you will run out of parking.”
can be levied on them for parking. Talking about the impact of the
Speaking of his experience in changing parking norms, Vickram B Pillai
another metropolitan city, Chennai, stated that as land becomes increasingly
Raj Cherubal, said, “One of the first scarce in the city, developers find it more
things we had to prove was that there and more challenging to provide space
was actually parking available. We went for parking according to regulations.
around marking spaces for parking with Getting approval for a project
simple yellow lines; what was amazing consequently becomes very difficult.
is that even autorickshaws, which “As the number of flats in a building
everybody thinks will misbehave, started increases, the parking requirement also
parking properly, simply because we put increases, for which vertical growth in
a yellow line. Everyone gets told they’re the form of multilevel mechanical car
parking wrongly by cops, but few parking or podium/basement/multi-
authorities have bothered to actually floor parking is the only solution. Earlier,
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