MULTIMODAL INTEGRATION: The Challenge of Institutional Integration

Entrepreneurs are working on solutions and one such solution is rental of twowheelers and electric two wheelers. Citizen’s group is developing an index to measure the accessibility to a station. Hyperloop India, from BITS Pilani is developing last mile connectivity for autorickshaws. Quickride is a car pool app for taxis and cars and Constapark is how you really ensure that you are able to aggregate both your demand and supply around metro stations. The ratios of walking are quite high in Indian cities, so we need to prioritize that.

Pravin Goyal: Kochi metro is around 25 kilometres with 22 stations. We have already done the first ROD (Record of Decision) that is the commercial operation, for almost around 13 kilometres and the other ROD was in October. Apart from that, we are also planning Phase II and Phase III.

The interesting part is that there is a connectivity from South station going up to Fort Kochi. Initially, we had planned to have a metro over there but after we did our DPR, we thought that it is better to go for an integrated water transportation system. So, if the, initial thought was to go for a metro, we realized that metro is not the solution. And this is a problem which many of the countries are today or many of the cities are actually experiencing. The success of metro is becoming a victim in many ways where for every public transportation we feel that metro is the answer. Here, what we found was that it was better to rejuvenate the already existing water transportation system, and we are now actually developing a ferry system over there. So, we will be connecting the mainland to various islands which are around and these islands.

There are three features which is basically to have a NMT system to cater to the last mile connectivity, to have feeder buses and to have the intermodal hubs, that is to have various major bus depots and to have metro stations or to have railway stations at one place.

What we found was that we would not actually gain a lot of metro ridership till the time we have a proper last mile connectivity that is by walking. We have started building footpaths on both the sides which are also disabled-friendly. We have also provided lights on them and taken care of utility diversion like storm water drain, etc. Below the footpath, there are a lot of things which we must take care of and that was the major challenge. At the same time, we also realized that there were some major junctions which need an improvement where we found that our customers were not confident in walking across. A zebra crossing on the left-hand side, if designed to have it on the right, there will be more passengers using it, as people do not want to walk even maybe 400 metres or 500 metres not because they do not actually want to walk but because they find it unsafe and very uncomfortable.

A footpath has also been built along with the cycle track in Kochi. So, basically the major issue that we found while going ahead with building a footpath or pedestrianizing both sides of station was that there was no single agency who takes the ownership. It took us almost two years before we could start our project, after getting all the authorities like BSNL, NHAI and PWD on board.

For connectivity through the feeder, we have actually already done an integrated bus timetable but getting the bus owners or getting the government STUs also to run as a integrated system is quite complex and tough. We have tried and what we have done is we are able to make at least seven bus operating units. Because most of the buses in Kochi are run by private owners and they are normally owners of two or three buses. So, what we did was, we tried to bring them together. Currently, we have got together seven bus operators and we hope to implement the integrated bus timetable. At the same time, we are going ahead with 50 vans to provide feeder services. This has also got its own challenges. A great amount of chaos and jams on the city roads can be reduced, if we have a good public transportation system and for that we require UMTA.

N V S Reddy: Hyderabad Metro Rail System is not a simple mass transit system, it is an opportunity for us to redesign an Indian city as a people-friendly green city. It is a 72-km, three-corridor project with total investment of $ 3 Billion. The way we are doing multimodal integration is by connecting to the main rail, important stations and bus depots. Wherever possible we are trying to give parking and circulation. We have 64 stations and at 32 locations we enough land to provide parking and circulation facilities.

We have studied metro systems from other countries to pick up the good points and the mistakes. Bangkok built an elevated mass transit system like ours initially. Afterwards it was found that there was an opportunity to build a skywalk below and give connectivity straightaway to buildings. So, the same thing we want to do in Hyderabad. We have schools, colleges, hospitals, government institutions, private buildings, all needing seamless connectivity.

In Bangalore or any of the places where elevated mass transit systems are implemented, you are bringing the station right on to the road. That can perhaps add to further chaos, this is the experience of Delhi as well. So we are dividing metro station into three zones; the station per se is about 200 metres, that is the Zone B which will be completely covered with good railing, so, that people will not get into the main carriageway.

The traffic will move on the main carriageway and we are going to integrate bus bays, auto bays and places for electric vehicles, Uber, Ola and all other services. Concepts like car-drop and kiss & ride will be introduced. We are making use of this opportunity to redesign our city.

As a manufacturer of pedestrian and vehicle control equipment, R Venkatesh stated that his company Magnetic Autocontrol seamlessly integrate bus traffic transport system, metro rail transport system and parking solutions. “As manufacturers what can we contribute towards a seamless integration is to we make things easier for passengers, be it vehicle or people movement. Something works in Europe doesn’t work in maybe Mexico, it doesn’t work in India. So, how do we understand the local challenges and how do we build products and solutions for meeting the local environment requirements. This is something which we would like to focus on.