Planning for park and ride facility along public transport corridor: a case of kolkata

Abstract

With rapid economic development and urbanisation there has been a higher rate of increase in private vehicle ownership than road supply. This has led to an increase in traffic and parking demand. There is an uneven distribution of private vehicles in India. India’s major metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore have 5% of India's population but 14% of its registered vehicles. The National Urban Transport Policy, 2006 mentions Park-and-Ride activity as a parking management initiative to be adopted to reduce traffic congestion on urban roads. This facility works best at peripheral locations with a demand for this service. Park-and-Ride activity targets those people who remain car dependent even if there is a good public transport system. Kolkata is known for its well-knit public transport system but however, there has been an increase in the private vehicle usage for work trips in the city. The study aimed to plan for Park-and-Ride facility as a part of travel demand management along public transport corridors in the city. The study area consists of two municipal corporations: the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the Biddhannagar Municipal Corporation. The first part of the thesis analysed the public transport accessibility of the city and identifies locations with demand for Park- and-Ride on few peripheral roads. Out of the corridors identified for having a demand for Park-and-Ride, one of the corridors was selected for further planning and implementation of the facility. There has been an eastward development of the city with the development of an Information Technology hub at Sector V, Salt Lake. This employment centre attracts a large number of private vehicles which are parked on street for more than 8 hours a day leading to narrowing of roads, traffic congestion and increased parking demand. A questionnaire survey was conducted among private transport users and stated preference method was used to analyse the demand for the service in the area. Average generalised costs take into account the monetary and non-monetary costs of a journey. The concept of average generalised cost was applied to find out the benefits of the facility to the commuters and society. The selected corridor leads to the employment centre at Salt Lake Sector V and hence it was required to do a detail study of the corridor. Feasible locations along the corridor were identified and modality of implementation of the facility was discussed.