Thursday, August 21, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Delhi Roads - Making them Safe
Safety Guidelines: All road and related construction work has to follow guidelines of MORTH(Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways), which states that any construction site must arrange for proper diversion of traffic passing through that area. Assessment of the same is left to subjective assessment of supervisory body. Here lies the catch. Culprit is in the system engaged in developing the infrastructure. And this leads us to a catch-22 situation. We cannot stop these people from working or we shall be left with no one to carry out the works.
Solution: I feel that it is time for some introspection. I am dedicating a new blog (Road to safe Roads) to solutions related to road infrastructure problems whereby my dear readers would be invited to share their thoughts to make transport systems in Delhi and other places better. Nonetheless, I have some thoughts to share on this problem. Here they come:Privatisation of Road safety: Lets think of a stretch of road e.g. Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway - It is one of the privatised highways in terms of construction, operation and maintenance. If government were to go ahead and allot safety of the road to private parties whereby a fixed sum was assured to the contractor for ensuring safety of drivers and penalise him for every mishap with different penalties tagged to different incidents with a huge loss for every death. Incentive to not loose money would be huge here and the party shall try to bring in as many disciplinary measures to streamline traffic flow and reduce mishaps. Throw in couple of more covenants related to customer satisfaction and we might end up having the most disciplined traffic system in the world. Technology would be cutting edge and fuel saving immense.
Road to safe Roads: I would like to discuss many more themes in the new Blog related to infrastructure including reducing road rage, improving city fuel efficiency etc.
How soon can I see this: Ofcourse, this cannot be done overnight. Nor will it happen lest if finds the right takers (I found some here.). I am trying to find ways for the same . And as my welcome post says, suggestions and participation are welcome. Also, I invite you to participate in related polls to this post to ascertain my views.
Au revoir!
Related links: DTC, DTP(P is for police, there's a link for suggestions too), Road reviews (hope he rides Delhi roads and present his analysis soon)