Infrastructure Planning and Management: August 2010

Saturday, August 28, 2010

United We Stand!

In a very glad move, the Tamil Nadu government is all set to initiate the Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) Bill. Finally, it seems, the government has realized that simply building flyovers and widening roads on every congested route is not going to relieve it permanently from the traffic woes. The government's effort of addressing the issue in urban transportation on a larger scale is certainly commendable.

Basically, the prime function of CUMTA will be, but not restricted to, the integration of all the modes of transport- buses, suburban trains & MRTS.

This means that all the transport infrastructure development in the city will be overseen by this agency by developing a Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) for the same. The bureaucratic delays and lack of coordination between the various agencies like MTC, Southern Railways, Chennai Corporation, Suburban Municipalities etc. which had hindered the implementation of projects in the past would no longer be a problem.

The main objective of the CTP is to promote the public transport sytem in the city, which has consistently been losing its share against private mode. Between 1992 and 2008, the percentage trips made in buses fell from 39% to 26% (source: CMDA). Although, CMDA in it's Second Master Plan, being highly optimistic, has aimed to increase the public-private share to 55-45, the intermittent survey conducted in 2005, showed an underwhelming 28-72 split. To address this issue, CMDA has come up with Bus Rapid Transit Ways(BRTW) project along 7 routes, one of which is the IT corridor. These routes will have a dedicated corridor for buses, and in conjunction with the ITS, the bus transport would be made faster, safer, reliable and comfortable.

The major advantage to the commuters by the integrated mode, is 'single ticket travel'. To illustrate: If a person residing in Medavakkam(suburb in south Chennai) wants to go to, say, Parry Corner (CBD), the most convinient option is to take a bus from Medavakkam to Velachery MRTS station and then take a train to Parry Corner. This is more convenient than to take a direct bus to Parry Corner because the city limits starts from Velachery, and the journey time of bus drastically increases as it moves towards the CBD, while the MRTS is much faster and mostly run under-capacity. With the introduction of single ticketing system, the commuter can do away with the standing in queue at the railway station. With the introduction of BRTW, which are designed to act as a feeder to other modes, the travel would be unperturbed by the traffic congestion, which would will attract significant patronage towards public transport. This is bound to relieve congestion to a considerable extent, cause reduction in road accidents, reduce vehicle emission.

Having said that, the practical implications will only be known after the actual implementation of the system. Hopefully, it turns out to be a success and other Metropolises would follow the suite very soon.

Reference:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Seamless-commuting-to-be-reality-soon-in-Chennai/articleshow/6448633.cms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai_RBTW

PS: I agree that the title was a bit cheesy!

Where are the civil engineers???

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/business/global/26engineer.html?_r=1

The above article might not be related to Infrastructure engineering but rather more towards Infrastructure engineers.

Indians have always had the pride to boast the IT sector, IT boom, white-collared job and so on. But unfortunately even such elites have to confront the grim reality of the Indian Infrastructure. A world bank studies says, India would need to train three times as many civil engineers as it does now to meet its infrastructure needs. There is an alarming dearth of civil/infrastructure engineers. The scenario has completely changed since 1990, when Civil outperformed IT.

Lack of right expertise/infrastructure engineers in this sector have led to whopping losses in the country. Faulty designs by the incompetent engineers have led to catastrophic failures. Rickety bridges crumbling under heavy rains, unfathomable potholes in roads, daily power cuts, water shortage, poor sanitation have all lowered the comfort zones of the users.

You find big projects successfully running in other parts of the world like Dubai. They use their potential human resources very wisely. The irony is that most of these workers/engineers migrate from India in lure of high salary.

So I feel that, it's the responsiblity of our government and other companies in this sector to stop this civil-brain drain by incentivizing these engineers in every aspects possible. A lot of trust and security have to be built around this sector for people to join and continue in this field.

Kadambari

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Expensive solar power can mean other Enron

Hi Guys,

I came across an interesting article in the Sunday edition of the Times of India. One can read the article here,

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/entry/expensive-solar-power-can-mean

I believe it is one of the countless instances where the government tries to mislead the public by introducing the so called "targets" without necessarily examining the feasibility of them.

Regards,

Ravi Kesav S.P

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

May be we can still cash the check..

- Vinayak

Courtesy: Data for the Graph "Infrastructure Development in India and China—A Comparative Analysis" M. Julie Kim and Rita Nangia August 2008.

If we are to look at Indian and Chinese decisions on infrastructure development from the point of view of "to where/which sector" the money was put in, as against "how"; a strikingly different part of the game reveals itself, or so I believe. For instance take a look at the much higher growth in the Telephone sector in China as against that in India during the period of 1980-90 and 1990-2005. Did you notice some other parameter that shows a similar trend? Yes , Annual GDP Growth? We are again back at the question as to 'does greater GDP growth leads to more telephone lines or vice-versa?'

Lets deviate a little, look at Sardar Patel Road congestion issue that has come up; the proposal is a 145 cr (114 cr for land acquisition) grade separator. Imagine decongestion is feasible, at least for a few years, through the implementation of, say, congestion pricing, or for that matter any other Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) for a reasonable investment of 20 cr. Looks like a saving of 125 cr isn't it? ; can't this be suitably used elsewhere, perhaps as research funding for stimulating the needed technological development which in turn will catalyze rapid economic development.

So compare now, for the sake, telephone and ITS; and you will see that they are/rely on the telecommunication backbone of the country. So essentially telecommunication, though indirectly, hypothetically helped us to postpone the congestion in Sardar Patel Road and help us find new technologies.

So could this logic explain why China overtook India in the economic race? So can we apply the same and cash in?, entering the virtuous circle, apply technology(which is by all means a part of infrastructure)>fund research>develop the economy>more research>better infrastructure>all kinds of development...

Before we set the ball rolling, lets reflect for a moment; are we at the right time and going in the right direction? 50% of our population is below 25 years of age where as 80% of Chinese population is above 15; We are at a better position of 79 in Failed States Index where as China stands at 62. Will our policy of promoting equality right from the start turn the tides in our favor? Or will, like China, accepting initial income inequality as an inevitable effect of economic development be the only way out? Will China's 10 point growth sustain? If so for how long?

Are we to shoot for the stars, with the hope that even if we miss we will land in the moon?