Bosky Khanna By Express News Service BENGALURU: At a time when the state government and stakeholders are finalising the comprehensive development plan (CDP) 2031, research from Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc’s) traffic research would be helpful. Researchers from the Department of Civil Engineering, IISc, have conducted a traffic impact analysis study wherein they have shown that the road width and the size of structures are not planned well, leading to traffic jams and bottlenecks. The study cites the example of Manyata Tech Park, where the the special economic zone (SEZ) is spread across 83,00,000 sqft and the non-SEZ spread across 48,00,000 sqft but the traffic volume on the road is much higher. According to the study, and as per estimates, the daily trip rate for SEZ office space is 9.2 trips per 1,000 sqft. And for non-SEZ, it should be 6.4 trips per 1,000 sqft, further varying on hourly basis. Ashish Verma, Assistant Professor, Transport Engineering Laboratory of the Civil Engineering Department, IISc, who is also the co-author of the paper, told The New Indian Express that while giving plan sanction in the absence of any traffic impact study, there are many traffic jams. In foreign countries, the builder is made to pay for the traffic impact and traffic generated, but here the property owners are spared while the citizens are made to pay. The accountability is missing, he says. For the study. the researchers divided the city into Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Non-Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Retail and Residential – Apartment. Researchers showed that trip generation rates were available for developed nations and are widely used for traffic impact assessment studies there, but not here. In case of retail spaces, researchers studied Orion Mall where they found that the average trip rate during the morning peak period was 1.81 per 1,000 sqft. During the evening peak, the number of trips attracted to the retail spaces was 14.73 per 1,000 sqft. The average trip rate for trips attracted during peak hours was 22.10 per 1,000 sqft. For residential spaces, it was noted that 1.35 trips per household are produced during the morning peak period and during the evening peak period the trips are 2.25. “Traffic Impact Assessment is one of the measures done to prevent any negative traffic and environmental impact. However, the lack of standard trip rates prevents an accurate assessment of traffic impact on the surrounding transport system of a proposed development. Through this study, we have tried to establish standard trip rates for the main land use types in an urban setting,” Verma said. He added that at present, when traffic congestion is a big issue, traffic impact assessment is necessary to tackle any potential traffic issues due to a proposed development and reduce its impact on the environment. The study’s conclusion SEZ office space attracts more trips per 1,000 sqft of area as compared to Non-SEZ office space Retail trips on a typical week day are more during the evening peak hour compared to the morning hour Residential trips generated during morning peak hour are lower than those attracted during evening peak hour as some of the trips generated during morning hour are conjoined trips, occurring during pre-morning peak hour

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