Ahmedabad BRTS

[ramkan]

Ahmedabad BRTS
Official Website

from wiki:

The Ahmedabad BRT System is a highly ambitious rapid transport system developed by Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board (GIDB) for the city of Ahmedabad, recognizing that no single mode would cater to the mobility needs of the city and that ‘Bus’ forms the most critical segment of the public transport system in the Ahmedabad city. GIDB has thereby entrusted the system design task to CEPT University. A part of first corridor connecting Pirana to R.T.O. was opened to public on October 14, 2009 by Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi.

Operational Routes:




Route Map - Copyright PlaneMad - Click on it to view large




Slides from this Pdf (BRTS in Gujarat):














Pdf 2 (Operating stats/features)








Phase II - Under Construction



For the latest construction pictures and updates see the last page of the thread.


Phase III - Planning stage



All the new routes (in purple) are along the radial roads connecting the 132 feet inner ring road (in blue) to the 200 feet SP ring road (in green).

The third phase will consist of 37 kms and take the overall network of BRTS to around 125 kms. The third phase will have nine new routes which will include routes from Narol to Aslali ring road, Jasodanagar to Hathijan ring road, CTM- Hatkeshwar-Khokhara-New Cloth Market, Khokhra-Rakhial-Civil Hospital-Ghewar circle-Shahibaug Dafnala-Acher, Chadkheda-Zundal circle, New C G Road- Vishat Junction-IIT, Akhbarnagar-Gota, Sola Fly-over to Science city and Shivranjani to APMC market, Sarkhej and Thaltej.

The much awaited Helmet-Crossroads to SP ring road via Drive-In road and Thaltej will also be built in this phase.

Related Article

[ramkan]

This is going to set an example on public road transport in INDIAN cities..

Ahmedabad takes the bus
While other cities in India are planning new Metro systems to address their transport woes, Ahmedabad has thrown its weight behind Bus Rapid Transit instead. And given the may advantages this enjoys over rail - cost, potential, flexibility - it may prove to be the wiser choice, writes Madhav Pai.

17 May 2006 - With crumbling transport infrastructure in many of our cities, various solutions to tackle this are being proposed around the country, and huge investments are in the pipeline. Interestingly, while the attention of nearly every other metropolitan area seems fixed on rail-based systems (Metros) as the solution, Ahmedabad has taken a different route, placing its faith in bus rapid transport. The merit of this alternative is worth examining, as in the coming years many other cities will travel down the congested paths that the major metropolitan areas already find themselves in.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) takes part of its name from "Rapid Transit", which describes a high-capacity transport system with its own right-of-way, implemented using buses through infrastructural and scheduling improvements, to provide a high level of service. Complicated as it sounds, this is nothing but high-capacity articulated buses operating in lanes reserved for their exclusive use.

Segregation - the first step

Would dedicated lanes for buses mean sub-optimal use of already over-capacity roadways? No. Segregation by vehicle type or travel mode is the key to improving traffic flow. Flow theorists studying transport always emphasize homogeneity. On a typical arterial road, buses account for about 10% of the total traffic, but can occupy twice that percentage of road space in terms of area. Given that there is a bus stop every 1.5 to 2 kilometres, imagine the road space consumed by the least manoeuvrable traffic, that is additionally changing lanes back and forth regularly. To add to the problem, buses typically stop 5-7 feet away from the kerb in many locations; this space around the bus stop is anyway eliminated from use due the overflow of passengers waiting at the bus station. In a BRT system the median and the inner most lane or the left most lane can be dedicated to the bus. In case of median lanes bus stops or stations can be built in the median to further improve the flow. Passengers are allowed to cross at the nearest signal or intersections.

A bust stop in Curitiba, Brazil, home to one of the most successful BRT systems in the world.


(Picture source: Wikipedia)

It might seem criminal to eliminate one lane of traffic for buses. However, experiences from around the globe, contrary to expectation, tell us that in fact BRT systems have improved traffic flow in the non-BRT lanes too. The segregation of traffic is one of the big reasons for this. A well implemented efficiently-run BRTS will also cause citizens to switch travel modes from car to bus, which will further alleviate the traffic situation.

Planning road volumes

In India, roads are often designed to take a particular number of users, say 30,000 persons per hour per direction. But the demand for use of any one road tells us only part of the story; looking at corridor volumes using a travel demand model is a flawed approach. It is like designing for 30,000 people to travel from A and B, not from their home to work or education institution and vice versa. Travel Demand does not work like that, it exists between origins and destinations, not along point A and point B on an arterial. Hence a service which delivers passengers from their desired origins to their desired destinations should be concieved while designing roadways.

At the same time existing BRTS, like the Trans Millenio in the Colombian capital Bogota, claim to carry 40,000 passengers per hour per direction. A certain degree of infrastructural and design innovation is required to achieve this goal, but it has been proved possible. A single dedicated lane BRTS is known to carry 20,000 passengers per hour per direction. A second lane at bus stops for overtaking has shown to double the system capacity.

And at what cost?

If dedicated bus lanes are so efficient, should we be choosing these instead of Metros for the big cities? Is a 30-km Metro really better than a 500-km BRTS? A comparison between the Delhi Metro and Ahmedabad's BRT project is instructive.

Experiences from around the globe tell us that BRT systems have improved traffic flow in the non-BRT lanes too.

The first phase of the Delhi metro is 64 kms. The capital cost of Phase I was estimated as Rs.6000 crores at Apr 1996 price levels. However, taking into account the cost escalation during the construction period of nearly eight years, the completion cost was Rs.10,571 crores. That's a whopping Rs.165 crores per km. The Bangalore metro project, which recently got off the ground, will be similar in cost; its projected cost of Rs.6500 crores at today's price levels works out to Rs.178 crores per km, even without accounting for the cost escalation. Almost certainly, the completed cost will be higher.

The Ahmedabad BRT project comprises of creating a 150-km long two-way corridor for swanky 70-seat buses; existing circular roads and some arterial roads will be widened for these to ply, and encroachments from certain portions will be removed. The first tender issued is for the 10-km stretch of road between Naroda and Thakkar Bapanagar in phase-I, at a cost of Rs 75-crore, to be completed in 18-24 months after the bid is finalised. That's a mere 7.5 crores a km, a tenth of the costs for a Metro. A second tender will be issued for another 8-km Naroda-Chiloda stretch next month, also as part of phase-I.

Higher costs for Metros may be acceptable, if they are accompanied by substantially higher benefits to the transport infrastructure's current woes. But look at how Delhi's Metro is functioning. The expected ridership in 2005 was 15 lakh passenger trips per day. Today, after more than a year of being in service, the system actually gets about 4.5 lakh passengers a day. It is very easy to blame the travel demand forecasting model for incorrectly forecasting ridership. How can these be so different? One explanation is the lack of connectivity at ends of the metro lines. This is very similar to the 'A to B' example cited above.

Flexibility - another reason for BRTS

An important advantage of BRTS is its flexibility. Like in Ahmedabad, the system can first be implemented over a 10 km stretch. This first-phase system should be in operation in less than 2 years. This approach lends itself to incremental learning of the problem, and eliminating mistakes as the development proceeds. The relatively low implementation costs also don't leave taxpayers tied to one particular technology or solution. And at the operational level, design changes in response to new concerns are also relatively simple to make even after the system is under operation. A fixed-line Metro at high cost offers none of this flexibility.

A number of other advantages too can accrue from BRTS, but these greatly depend upon design, as well as adaptation of design to local conditions and implementation. Even without those, however, it is quite likely that bus rapid transit is the more profitable solution for many cities. It is very encouraging though to see Ahmedabad make the bold decision to go with BRTS, against the conventional wisdom that favours Metros. As many as 35 cities in the world have successful BRTS, including five in China, besides North and Latin America and Europe. One successful implementation in Ahmedabad could lead to a windfall of equitable, sustainable, affordable and environment-friendly BRTS projects across the country. ⊕

Madhav Pai
17 May 2006

Madhav Pai is a Senior Transport Planner at Dowling Associates Inc., in Oakland, California. During the last six months he has been with Egovernments Foundation in Bangalore, helping to establish the transport planning group there (full disclosure: India Together editor Ashwin Mahesh leads this research group).

The website is painfully slow with a low bandwidth.
http://www.egovamc.com/BRTS/BRTS.ASP

[harsh1802]

Yeah gud option to go with for a city like Ahmedabad.

But i think the big 6 shld also consider a parallel BRTS to go along with the MRTS.......i think they wld work wonderfully well in unision.

Most of the major cities in the world do it this way....and to think tht a MRTS wld solve all the transportation problems is foolish to say the least...

[JD]

How exactly they are going to find space for a dedicated bus lane in already non-existant Indian roads?

[ramkan]

Here is the cross-section, with Right of Way for BRTS in the middle..


Here is the route map on first phase covering 60 km

[ramkan]

AMC has done some thorough work on this..

[Tintin27]

Knowing the traffic discipline in india, they need to put up pedestrian overhead bridges or subways to cross. Beijing BRTS mostly has subways for crossing the street to the BRTS station in the middle.
Speaking of the BRTS bus, here is one video of one of the bus with TVs installed, just like Singapore... I wonder when we will get these in india...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-lxy...=beijing%20bus

[cncity]

Originally Posted by Tintin27

Knowing the traffic discipline in india, they need to put up pedestrian overhead bridges or subways to cross. Beijing BRTS mostly has subways for crossing the street to the BRTS station in the middle.
Speaking of the BRTS bus, here is one video of one of the bus with TVs installed, just like Singapore... I wonder when we will get these in india...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-lxy...=beijing%20bus

Constructing subways and overhead bridges wont help in India..people are just too lazy to use them..they'll still cross in between the road, jump over the rails or even break the cement blocks to cross over and never use the bridges. The only way to make them use overhead bridges or subways is to have tall borders.?? on the sides of the road..tall enough that they wont be able to jump over it or pass through them to cross over...

[ramkan]

Infact, one of the studies and proposed design of the bus stops for ART, considers fencing along the median. Which forces the pedestrians to cross using zebra crossing at intersections. The bus shelters would be approximately 100 - 300 meters from the junctions.

Precisely the bus shelters along the median(instead of conventional road side) is choosen to discourage people crossing roads and occupying roads while boarding buses.

I would post those bus shelter and access designs soon..

[ramkan]

Various options considered


Current bus stations and road usage, note how commuters spill onto the roads and occupy 1 to 2 lanes


Proposed Design

[Babji]

Originally Posted by ramkan

This is going to set an example on public road transport in INDIAN cities..

how did they decide and justify this mode of transport system?
is it really better than a metro in terms of operational cost?
what about usage of already sparce fossil fuels? pollution?
is it convenient for commuters accessing the bus stations?
is the land spared for roads used optimumly?
would it be a profitable venture?

[centralized pandemonium]

Holy crap!! This looks awesome. Finally something meaningful for one of my home towns!!! I think apart from this they seriously need to widen the roads in the city. The roads in the new areas are nice, but the ones in the old areas are yuck!!

And I hope that Baroda also gets new modern buses, they really don't need a full fledged BRTS.

[ramkan]

AMC has detailed plans on every road from widening roads, lighting, drainage, pavements, parking zones, how to keep road side shops from choking traffic etc..

CEPT has done extensive study in the last few years. This is a welcome change for an INDIAN CITY.

Babji, i think cost and accessibility is the reason for this project. They might still go for metro at a later stage but this is to better utilize road space with minimum cost..

I will post more study docs at a later time.

[mayur_k100]

I think there is plenty of road space on main roads but they are under utilized because half the road space is covered with sand. If they would keep the dust off the road they could add extra lanes. It is a good idea they should try to get environmental friendly buses if the project succeeds.

[VaastuShastra]

Wow, there must be a lot of space for there to be an eight lane road running through the city...

[kashyap3]

this system should be implemented in cities like
Baroda, Surat, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur, Guwahati, Vizag, Vijayawada, Amritsar, Trivendram, Patna etc
where there is a lot of room for cost effective development

[ramkan]

Finally some news on the BRTS

WORK ON FIRST PHASE OF THE PROJECT COVERING 58 KM WILL COMMENCE SOON
Express News Service

Ahmedabad, August 14: THERE is some good news as well as bad news for those eagerly waiting to see the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) through. First the good news: the project has got the Central Government approval for the Rs 493-crore first phase covering 58 kms. Now the bad news: the AMC, after inviting tenders to begin work on Narol-Naroda National Highway stretch, has decided to start it between Pirana and RTO.

Maintaining a brave face, the administrative and political wings say that this has been done to avoid delay in its implementation. But the truth is the AMC has been finding it tough to have necessary approvals from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for redesigning the Narol-Naroda highway because it involves material alterations in the original road design. The corporation, however, is happy that the Central Government has given its approval for the project paving way for starting work on the 12-km Pirana-RTO route, which will involve an expenditure of Rs 87.60 crore.

To complete this part of first phase of the project, the AMC has set a deadline of one year from October 2006. Of the said expenditure, the Central Government will bear Rs 30.66 crore (35 pc) and the State Government Rs 13.44 crore (15 pc) while the rest, Rs 43.50 crore (50 pc), will be borne by the AMC.

The Pirana-RTO route consists of two parts: from RTO to Shivranjani crossroads (8 kms) and from Shivranjani crossroads to Pirana bridge (4 kms).

When complete, it will be the first in India to offer commutation through BRTS, controlling bus movement through GPRS system, electronic ticketing and low-floor high payload capacity buses of extra length, said Mayor Amit Shah, Standing Committee chairperson Madhuben Patel and Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam at a joint press briefing. As part of this, the AMC has already grounded signage system and traffic signals at Shivranjani crossroads.

[Effer]

It looks excellent!

[cptracker]

http://cities.expressindia.com/fulls...?newsid=214013

BRTS deadline thrown 6 months off the track

Express News Service

Ahmedabad, December 20: As with most civic projects that are announced with a lot of fanfare before they get mired in delay, so it seems with the prestigious transport infrastructure project of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) for Ahmedabad. Come September 2007 and the first phase of BRTS was expected to be commissioned. But now it is going to suffer a delay of another six months and will be commissioned not before March 2008. Reason: technical problems.

Admitting this, Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam told reporters here on Wednesday that though the Bhurelal Committee had asked the AMC to complete the project in nine months, that is by September 2007, it was not possible technically to meet that deadline. He said that even the CEPT experts who were involved with the project since beginning, had confirmed that the project would take at least 15 months for completion.

‘‘No contractor came forward to complete the project in nine months and therefore, we have undergone the tendering process afresh giving a new deadline of 15 months,’’ he said. Gautam added that the work on the Pirana-RTO stretch of 12 km and the Narol-Naroda stretch of the project would commence almost simultaneously and not only that, several other processes would start along with the main project.

Approval from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for alterations in the Narol-Naroda bypass for BRTS project has been a major stumbling block in the progress of the project, even forcing the AMC to abandon this stretch and start on Pirana-RTO stretch instead. But now, according to the Commissioner, NHAI approval process is through and there won’t be any difficulty in starting project on this stretch where service road is encroached by locals who are also leading resistance to part of the project, he said. NHAI has agreed to let AMC begin work on two split flyovers of Soni ni Chali char rasta and Thakkarpaba approach, he said.

‘‘We have gone for construction of four split flyovers on the BRTS route mainly to facilitate movement of BRTS buses in more than one direction and segregate heavy vehicular traffic from the BRTS route’’, Gautam said. He said that while Pirana-RTO stretch would be commissioned by March 2008, the Narol-Naroda portion would be commissioner by July 2008.

Along the road designing, work on installation of signals and bus manufacturers like Volvo, Ashok Leyland and Tata have also been started.

He clarified that where BRTS buses would ply, AMTS buses would not come in between but serve as feeder to BRTS. He would not comment on the comparative tariffs for commuting through BRTS vis a vis AMTS.

About the 208 mini CNG buses plying in the city, he said these buses had proved a failure because while nearly 60 per cent of them had some problem or the other, 30 per cent of them broke down daily and therefore, no more new mini CNG buses would be introduced in the city. New buses will start arriving from next month, he said.

[cptracker]

http://cities.expressindia.com/fulls...?newsid=213027

To fix space jam, AMC plans split flyover to Bopal

Express News Service

Ahmedabad, December 12: In a major two-pronged urban development initiative, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has decided to build yet another split flyover bridge across SG highway to facilitate further extension of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in the city to cover newer areas. Accordingly, it has decided to extend the BRTS route from Shivranjini Crossroads right up to Bopal village.

This is expected to have a dual effect on the transportation infrastructure of the city for while the proposed flyover will reduce traffic congestion at Iskcon junction on Sarkhej-Gandhinagar highway, it will also provide a fast means of public transport through a viable bus route. Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam on Tuesday said the proposal was given to the CEPT University for working out final design and other modalities.

Since the extension is part of the BRTS project approved under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), he said finance would not be a problem for AMC as the State Government and the Central Government would be chipping in their share of the cost. This will be the first split flyover across the SG Highway and the AMC expects to receive due permission from the National Highways Authority of India in due course, said Gautam.

Besides this, the AMC has also taken a major decision of reversing the two projects involving Parimal Garden level crossing and Ladla Pir (Shahibaug) level crossing.

While Parimal Garden crossing was to have an underpass, the AMC has now decided to build a 410-metre long four-lane underpass at a cost of Rs 12 crore. This will also have service lanes and cycle track on both sides.

Originally an underpass was planned here but it was turned into a flyover following stiff resistance from ‘‘local residents’’ but again, now the original project stays with modifications in design to accommodate service lanes and cycle tracks, he said.

On the other hand, at Shahibaug Ladla Pir level crossing, one the busiest level crossings in the city, it was earlier decided to build an underpass but now the decision has been overturned and a flyover will be built here costing Rs 16 crore.

The reason being that the project for an underpass would have used up Rs 7 crore just for shifting of underground utilities.

Gautam also said that to facilitate another BRTS route from Sarangpur to Soni ni Chali, the Sarangpur railway overbridge would be expanded and that talks with railway authorities were in progress.