How to Fix Traffic Chaos

In 1913 Henry Ford invented "moving assembly line". In assembly line, a product is built cumulatively, passing from one unit to other unit, sequentially. Since the product flow is sequential, the over-all production rate of an assembly line depends on its slowest unit. To optimally use the production facility, more effort should be spent to increase the production rate of the slowest production unit. Same is true with moving traffic on a road. The slowest vehicle (on a given lane), can slow down the traffic speed of all the vehicles. Hence, in order to improve the travel time, one needs to fix the slowest vehicles on the road.

There needs to be a two-fold effort to fix this up:

• Improve the overall travel speed
  
• Provide different driving lanes
  

In this post I suggest a few steps to implement this two fold situation.

• No Pot-holes: Improve the road quality fix all broken roads.
  
• Free left turns: combined with strict lane discipline - Vehicles on Left Lane must turn left.
  
• No Parking on Busy Roads: Building owners must provide parking facilites for the visitors in their premises.
  
• No Vehicle Halt within 50 mtrs range of a traffic signal: Which should also mean moving all the BMTC bus-stops slightly away from traffic signals.
  
• No-Pedestrian-Zones: Provide over-pass and under-pass for the pedestrians on busy roads. No pedestrians shall be allowed to cross/walk-on these busy roads¹.
  
• Enforce heavy penalties on law violations. Penalty should also include include temporary/permanent suspension of driving license on repeated negligense.
  
• Transparent Law Enforcement: Law enforcement should be made transparent².
  
• No multi-story buildings on narrow roads.
  
• Increase the number of buses in BMTC fleet. Provide more frequent services. Provide different luxury grades. Provide women special buses.
  
• Encourage³ organization to provide group transport for employees.
  
• Widen the roads
  

NOTES:

[1] No insurance claim must be provided for pedestrian hit by traffic on "no-pedestrian-zones". No criminal offense shall be registered against vehicles, which hit the pedestrians on these "no-pedestrian-zones".

[2] There need to be a public participation in the law enforcement. There should be complaint booths/web-site where public complaints (with sufficient proofs) can be registered against erring vehicles. All the complaints and their resolution shall be made public on regular basis. With every other citizen carrying a cell-phone, and with every cell-phone having a camera, it should be easy to collect proofs against traffic law violations.

[3] Encouragment could involve tax benefits and subsidies on vehicle and fuel.