Question:
Write an essay on traffic control in India.
Answer:
The most critical issue in routine life which any individual living in India encounters is the traffic congestion. A recent statutory investigation results stated that around 80% of the mobility in the country of India is through roadways and approximately 10 million vehicles operate and run on the Indian roads on every day basis (Nesamani, 2010). Thus, the said statistics make the problem of traffic in India very serious as traffic congestion n lead to accidents and affects the road safety in India. A major cause of traffic congestion in India is a result of under developed traffic rules and under constructed roadways when compared to other developed countries in the world. Thus, India should make rules and regulation to develop its traffic system, construct and maintain proper roadways to solve the problem of traffic congestion in India for future. Strict traffic rules and regulations along with well maintained roads will also help in reducing the number of accidents which occur all over India. Thus, strict guidelines for promoting roadway safety should be a priority as it is evident that most of the accidents in India are a result of vehicle drivers not following traffic rules and under maintained roads which have potholes. However, in the recent times, the government in India has made many changes in traffic rules which have improved road transportation immensely; however, there is still a lot of scope for improvement if we compare the Indian traffic rules and roadways with that of a developed country (Chandra & Kumar, 2013).
The traffic congestion problems are faced in the major cities in India the most like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore. The individual state governments of each of these states have taken several measures to minimize the traffic in their cities by construction and maintenance of flyovers and bypass roads, construction of ring roads, maintaining a traffic warden in heavy traffic oriented signals and maintaining traffic signals. The implementation of the above mentioned measures by government has drastically reduced traffic congestion in major cities, however with the increase in number of vehicles over the years, in the recent times; the said measures also have failed to provide the results which they were expected to deliver and the traffic congestion problem has increased wasting valuable time of an individual especially during the working hours (DUTTA & PAL, 2010).
The construction of highways, flyover and bypass roads was a brilliant idea to minimize traffic congestion, however, the maintenance of these highways and flyovers is a major issue which is still unaddressed. The highways in the northern, central and western parts of India are well maintained however, when it comes to the highways in South, most of the highways are under construction. Thus, uniformity needs to be establishing to manage and maintain major highways in India especially which connects cities in India. There are many flyovers across India which takes a visit fee when entering the flyover which is termed as “maintenance fee”, but the money collected is never used to maintain the flyovers. Thus, the money collected by the citizens for maintenance of roads must be used to do the same (Gururaj, 2013). It is the duty of every state government authority to maintain roads within their state, thus, the ministers in charge of the said duty should be under a central government watchdog for treatment of ill-maintained roads. It is also to be noted that, well-maintained roads reduce the number of accidents and promotes safety.
The traffic rules and regulations play an important role in controlling traffic congestion in India. Having a strict traffic system and a strict traffic constable can be very useful in controlling traffic congestions (Ruikar, 2013). In a country like India, no rules are followed strictly as the citizens in India do not fear the system and believe that bribe can get them out of any offence. Breaking traffic signals is a hobby for people in India and its very common to break a signal and then bribe the traffic constable; however, this system needs to become strict where penalty and fines for breaking traffic rules increases and traffic constables get strict without accepting of any bribe. Rues need to be made where breaking traffic rules and speed limits are punished with heavy penalties like in the many western countries.
Thus, having a sound and well organized traffic management system, which can mange, monitor and enforce strict traffic rules is the best solution for India’s ever growing traffic problems. Thus, in the recent times, to manage and control traffic, India introduced the implementation of “Intelligent Traffic System”. Intelligent Traffic System is an electronic system which consists of sensors that help to operate traffic signals automatically without any manual help according to the number of vehicles on the road (Goyal, Dhirendra & Kumar, 2013). This system also helps in better enforcement of traffic rules as it does not require a traffic constable at traffic signals but breaking of signals by a vehicle is captured in the cameras attached to each signals. This helps in punishing all the individuals who break traffic signals by immediately issuing of a challan against the vehicle number which jumped signals. Thus, the implementation of the Intelligent Traffic System can not only control traffic in India, but also help to promote road safety and reduce pollution levels. The odd-even rule which was implemented in Delhi to control pollution has benefited the city and thus, the government of India should come up with innovative and developed ideas to control traffic issues in India (Clark, 2013).
However, coming up with techniques and ideas like Intelligent Traffic System and Odd-Even system is not enough if the techniques and ideas are not well executed uniformly in India. Since the adoption of Intelligent Traffic System, the sensor electronic signal is only successful installed in major cities in India like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi; however it is important to bring about changes all over India which can control and manage traffic and road safety (Mishra et al., 2010).
While making the comparison between the traffic systems of different countries, it can be seen that there is the existence of a versatile system of traffic control in the territory of India. The rules of road differ from one state to another. There is a high possibility of causing accidents by any Indian person who is driving abroad. It is because the road rules will be entirely different than followed in his own country. In India, there is much less recording of traffic system as most of the roads of India are still under construction and the roadways are on the verge of development. Hence, there lies the opportunity for the development of proper traffic system in the future. There has also been the evolution of the developed roads in India in the last few decades. The prominent example of this fact is the development of the National Highway roads.
Reference List
Chandra, S., & Kumar, U. (2013). Effect of lane width on capacity under mixed traffic conditions in India. Journal of transportation engineering,129(2), 155-160.
Clark, S. (2013). Traffic prediction using multivariate nonparametric regression. Journal of transportation engineering, 129(2), 161-168.
DUTTA, T., & PAL, G. (2010). Pulmonary function test in traffic police personnel in Pondicherry. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol, 54(4), 329-336.
Goyal, P., Dhirendra, M., & Kumar, A. (2013). Emissions of criteria pollutanats from vehicular traffic in Delhi, India. Journal of Environmental Research and Development, 7(4A), 1693.
Gururaj, G. (2013). Road traffic deaths, injuries and disabilities in India: current scenario. National Medical Journal of India, 21(1), 14.
Mishra, B., Sinha, N. D., Sukhla, S. K., & Sinha, A. K. (2010). Epidemiological study of road traffic accident cases from Western Nepal.Indian journal of community medicine, 35(1), 115.
Nesamani, K. S. (2010). Estimation of automobile emissions and control strategies in India. Science of the Total Environment, 408(8), 1800-1811.
Ruikar, M., 2013. National statistics of road traffic accidents in India. Journal of Orthopedics, Traumatology and Rehabilitation, 6(1), p.1.
