Traffic woes swell as vehicles increase to over 13 lakh

Visakhapatnam: With rapid urbanisation in and around city and expansion of the city traffic up to Yelamanchili on the west side and Bheemili on the east side, the commuters are facing tough time travelling in the city.

Due to the lack of proper public transport system, the number of two, three-wheelers and cars has been increasing and blocking the roads. With this the commuters are spending over two hours on the roads every day.

The number of two, three and four-wheelers in the district crossed 13 lakh off them 10 lakh are exclusively two-wheelers. However, the RTA officials say that the number of vehicles could be more since out of State registered vehicles belonging to Central government and PSU employees, are also plying on the city roads.

In fact, looking at the traffic challenges in the city, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has taken up the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) over a decade ago, but the project is not yet completed.

The city needs a robust public transport system to tackle the increasing roadway congestion, noise, air pollution and fatalities in the road accidents.

Meanwhile, due to various reasons including both wife and husband working in several families, each family owns two to three vehicles.

There is no Act or Law to limit the number of two-wheeler or four-wheelers per family or per individuals. There are also instances of four to five vehicles registered per family in Visakhapatnam. Except levying two per cent tax by the Road Transport Authority on the second vehicle, no concrete steps are being take by the government to promote public transport system, opine the common people.

Though the APSRTC is running several services, they are very less against the increasing demand for transportation.

Meanwhile, following the rules and regulations, the RTC is not providing services to the last-mile connectivity and very particularly according to the needs of peak times like between 6 am and 10 am and 4 pm and 11 pm, said P.Venkateswara Rao, private surveyor in transport management.

The APSRTC is claiming that over 6 lakh passengers travel in over 650 buses per day. Of six lakh commuters, over 1.5 lakh are students of various educational institutions.

"Yes. Failing to complete the BRTS project even after 10 years, the impact is now visible. The city and outskirts witnessed expansion. If the Metro Rail Project comes up, there will be big relief to the commuters," one of the senior officials of GVMC said.