Feasibility study of personal rapid transit: a case study of Lucknow/ Shreeyali Agarwal

Abstract

In India large number of people are migrating to cities for a better livelihood. This puts a large pressure on public transport of a city. Because of insufficient or lack of public transport services, people buy their own personal vehicles. This in turn results in choking of the road where average speed of vehicles reduces to a standstill. People spend a lot of time for commuting (one to two hours daily). This reduces the working efficiency of people. This is a major challenge in the domain of urban transportation. Various problems arise such as limitations of options available, space available and interrelationships. In spite of tremendous effort to promote the use of public transport by several authorities, the private mode users still prefer their own mode for commute. There are several reasons why people prefer private vehicles over public vehicles like comfort, waiting time, sense of privacy and availability of parking space. One such solution to tackle the problem is by implementing Personal Rapid Transit system in cities. Personal Rapid Transit is an amalgamation of automotive, computer network and transit technologies which is economical and reliable in nature. It is a demand responsive vehicle which is designed to transport individuals directly to their destination without stopping at any intermediate stations. This study focuses on how PRT can be used to meet the transportation deficit in an area. Lucknow has been taken as the case study area to study how PRT system improves the accessibility of public transportation in an area. A PRT network has been proposed of length 6.25 kilometers integrating it with existing metro line and passing through the neighboring commercial and institutional areas. Further, willingness to shift has also been studied in order to know the demand of people who are going to use this system. With the help of the demand and supply capacity, a feasibility plan of this system for 30 years has been prepared. After the systematic analysis of various parameters and by charging a reasonable fare based on the reconnaissance survey, an optimum Internal Rate of Return of seven percent is be gained which shows that the project is feasible and can be implemented in the area.