Transport in Chennai
Transport in Chennai includes various modes of air, sea, road and rail transportation in the city and its suburbs.[1] Chennai's economic development has been closely tied to its port and transport infrastructure,[1] and it is considered one of the best infrastructure systems in India.
History
The city of Chennai is the birthplace of the railway system in India. In 1831–33, Madras Parliament first came up with the idea. In 1832, the first proposal of railway under the British administration was made in Madras, 21 years before the first operational railway line in India. Later in 1836 A. P. Cotton, a civil engineer in Madras, advocated the construction of a railroad in India.
Meanwhile, in 1835, a short railway line intended to carry granite stones was laid at
In 1845,
As of 1 April 2013, the total vehicle population of Chennai is 3,881,850, including 3,053,233 two wheelers.[6]
Growth trend of motor vehicles in the city is listed below:[7]
No. | Year of growth | Total registered vehicles |
---|---|---|
1. | 1981 | 120,000 |
2. | 1986 | 228,000 |
3. | 1991 | 544,000 |
4. | 1996 | 812,000 |
5. | 1998 | 975,000 |
6. | 2012 | 3,760,000 |
7. | 2016 | 4,757,822 |
8. | 2017 | 5,309,906 |
9. | 2020 | 6,016,717 |
Transportation in the past
- Trams
Trams were existent in the city for about 67 years starting from the end of the 19th century. The city was home to the first electric trams in India. Trams became a necessary one as the area of the city was widely dispersed with broad avenues radiating from the fort area.[8] The first electric trams became operational in the city on 7 May 1895.[4][5] Trams were operated between the docks and the inland areas, carrying goods and passengers. The route encompassed Mount Road, Parry's Corner, Poonamallee Road and the Ripon Building. Run by the Madras Electricity System (MES), trams on rails dominated Chennai roads and remained a convenient mode of transport for thousands of riders as it could carry heavy loads. They moved at a maximum speed of just 7 km/h. Two types of trams were in operations—the bigger type measuring about 50 ft in length and the smaller type measuring about 35 ft. A total of 200 commuters could conveniently travel in trams, which had wooden seats to seat 60 passengers. The trams ran on electricity.[9] The original conduit system was replaced by an conventional overhead wire system after a series of destructive monsoons. By 1921, when the tram system was at its peak, there were 24 km of track and 97 cars.[8]
A strike by workers demanding wage revision resulted in a lock-out of the tram company by about 1950. Subsequently, the then Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari favoured the idea of ending the service, and the tram service came to an end on 12 April 1953. The rails of the tram embedded on roads continued to remain for several years after the withdrawal of the service, since their removal would cost the government a fortune.[9] The contract to remove the tracks and overhead cables was given to Narainsingh Ghanshamsingh.
Road transportation
The city and metropolitan area are served by major arterial roads that run either in an east–west or north–south direction.
(
Buses
The first motor bus service in the city was organised by the Madras Tramway Corporation between 1925 and 1928.[10] Most motor bus service providers in the city were nationalised as per the 1939 Motor Vehicles Act. The Pallavan Transport Corporation was created on 1 January 1972 to serve Madras city. It had a fleet of 1029 buses. In 1994, Pallavan Transport Corporation was bifurcated into Dr. Ambedkar Transport Corporation Limited for northern Madras and Pallavan Transport Corporation Limited for southern Madras. The two were reunited in 2001 to form the Metropolitan Transport Corporation. The bus service, currently, plies about 4,000 buses on 622 routes, moves an estimated 5.038 million passengers each day.[11]
The
Other road vehicles
In addition to the bus service, private metered
Despite a sharp increase in the number of four-wheelers in the city,
In February 2014,
There are 31 auto LPG dispensing stations (ALDS) in the city, of which 11 are owned by
The city has a total of 372 junctions.[17]
Rail
The first railway station in Madras city was opened at
Chennai's first suburban electric train service was inaugurated between Chennai Beach and Tambaram on 2 April 1931.[19] The Chennai suburban railway system currently has 6 lines with a total system length of about 1,211.81 km (753 mi) (non-redundant track length) of which 509.71 km (317 mi) are true suburban and 702.1 km (436 mi) MEMU service].
- North Line: )
- South Line: Villupuram – Puducherry (union territory))
- South West Line: )
- West Line: Jolarpet)
- North West Line: Tirupati)
- South West Frontier Line: )
The system uses
MRTS System
The MRTS system opened in the early 1990s and consists of the following sections:
- Chennai Beach – Velachery
- St. Thomas Mount(under construction)
- Thiruvanmiyur – Mamallapuram (proposed)
The
Metro Railway
A metro system is under construction to meet the future urban transport requirements.
- Corridor 1: Wimco Nagar – Chennai International Airport
- Corridor 2: St. Thomas Mount
- Corridor 3: SIPCOT
- Corridor 4: Lighthouse, Chennai – Poonamallee
- Corridor 5: Madhavaram – Sholinganallur
Smart Card
The Smart Card looks similar to a debit card, issued by CMRL at ticket counters for Rs. 100 currently. This Rs. 100 includes Rs. 50 refundable deposit, and Rs. 50 travel value. The travel value can be used to purchase platform and travel tickets for the Chennai metro trains. The smart card is valid for 6 months from the date of purchase and the extra amounts of travel value can be recharged whenever needed. It is found that very few people are using this smart card and many ticket vending machines which work on Smart cards do not function properly.[25]
Airport
The
This airport is undergoing modernisation and expansion, including the construction of an additional terminal. Furthermore, a new greenfield airport is to be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 20 billion in Parandur (Near Sriperumbudur) to serve the city's burgeoning air traffic.[28]
Other airports in the metropolitan area include the Indian Air Force base at Tambaram and the Indian Naval air base at Arakkonam.
Ports
The city is served by two major ports namely
Developments
From September 2012, the city traffic police has planned to shift to a ₹ 1,170-million integrated traffic management system (ITMS), which is a first of its kind in the country, through which 100 arterial traffic junctions in the city will be integrated and brought under CCTV surveillance with facilities to ensure smooth traffic flow and streamline the traffic violations as well. The system comprises traffic junction surveillance system and automatic number plate reading system (ANPRS) through which vehicle numbers of traffic offenders would be identified and challans sent to them with visuals of the offence. ITMS would also provide a seamless passageway to the ambulances and VVIP vehicles by giving green signals at the three consecutive junctions ahead and help nabbing the criminals by signalling red lights. A total of 700 cameras (ANPRS and pan-tilt-zoom) would be installed at 100 junctions.[17]
As part of the ITMS, a green corridor for emergency services, including ambulances and fire tenders, will also be implemented.[30]
Growth in vehicle population
Chennai's vehicle population has been accelerating steadily from 600,000 in 1992, to 1.3 million in 2001 and 3.64 million in 2012. Daily, about 1,500 new vehicles hit the roads, with two-wheelers constituting more than 75 percent of them. However, registration of new cars is also on the rise. Chennai vehicles constitute one-fourth of the 17.5 million vehicles across the state of Tamil Nadu. The state has more two-wheelers (13 million) than Maharashtra, which has more vehicles overall. Two-wheelers account for 78 percent of all vehicles in the state, while cars add up to 14 percent. According to a survey conducted by the city traffic police in 2012, there is a vehicle on the road for every two Chennaiites. Given the growth rate, it is predicted that Chennai will soon have twice as many vehicles as Mumbai.[31]
Owing to the high traffic density, the average bus speed in the city as of 2014 is 17-18 kilometres per hour. Over the next five years it is expected to come down to 12 km per hour, whereas the maximum allowable operating speed of the vehicles shall be 80 km/h with a maximum design speed of 90 km/h. The Chennai Metro Rail project is expected to reduce the commuting time by 75 percent from one end of the city to another.[32]
Pollution
Chennai ranks fifth in carbon emissions from the transport sector among 54 South Asian cities, according to a study done by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiative (ICLEI). The city's emission levels in transport is much higher than Kolkata and Delhi. According to the study, Chennai has a per capita emission rate of 0.91 tonnes of carbon dioxide, while its total emissions for the year is 3.82 metric tonnes. This is mostly due to the significant increase of motor vehicles used for commuting and carrying goods in the past few years. As against 1.25 million registered vehicles in the city in 2001, there are approximately 3.5 million registered vehicles in 2012.[33]
Safety
According to statistics in the report Accidental Death and Suicides in India (ADSI) 2011, prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau, Chennai has recorded the highest number of road accidents in India, with a staggering 9,845 cases in the year 2011, the highest among 53 cities in the country. This is almost twice as that of 2010, when 5,123 road accidents were recorded. This is much higher than the Delhi's 6,065 road accidents, the city ranking second. However, only 1,399 people died in road mishaps in Chennai, while Delhi recorded 1,679 fatalities. Accidents on the Chennai's roads resulted in 7,898 persons getting injured, including 6,280 males and 1,618 females. Of these, two-wheelers involved in as many as 341 cases of accidents, followed by private lorries at 266, cars at 159, private tempos and vans at 133, government vehicles at 112, bicycle at 1, with no pedestrian accidents. The largest number of accidents occurred between 9 p.m. and midnight with 1,626 cases, while the period between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. comes close at 1,614 cases. Accidents were also highest in the seven-month period between March and September.[34] Of all the fatal accident in the city between 2007 and 2012, the percentage of hit-and-run cases have been 15 to 18 percent.[35]
The future
In August 2018, the 162-km-long Chennai Peripheral Road (CPR) connecting
See also
Notes and references
- ^ a b Woolsey, Matt. "In Depth: World's 10 Best Commutes". Forbes.
- ^ "The first trains in India". IR History: Early Days – I. IRFCA.org. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
- ^ Darvill, Simon (December 2011). "India's First Railways". IRFCA.org. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
- ^ a b c d "Brief History of the Division" (PDF). Chennai Division. Indian Railways—Southern Railways. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
- ^ a b Madhavan, T. (12 May 2012). "NSC Bose Road: Thoroughfare of George Town". The Hindu. Chennai. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
- ^ Sasidharan, S. (10 April 2013). "1.4 cr 2-wheelers ply on TN roads". Deccan Chronicle. Chennai. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ Jalihal, Santhosh A.; Kayitha Ravinder; T. S. Reddy (2005). "Traffic Characteristics of India" (PDF). Proceedings of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol. 5, pp. 1009–1024. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
- ^ a b "India". Tram Views of Asia. tramz.com. n.d. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
- ^ a b Kolappan, B. (25 August 2013). "When trams on rails dominated Chennai roads". The Hindu. Chennai. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
- ^ Muthiah, Pg 323
- ^ "The Growth". Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Chennai) Ltd. 18 August 2009. Retrieved 18 August 2009.
- ^ Dorairaj, S (28 December 2005). "Koyambedu bus terminus gets ISO certification". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Archived from the original on 5 July 2006. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
- ^ Kabirdoss, Yogesh (4 July 2012). "Auto rickshaws take the 'share' route to counter competition". The New Indian Express. Chennai: Express Publication. Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ^ a b c Hemalatha, Karthikeyan (9 October 2012). "Autos switch off LPG, revert to petrol, diesel". The Times of India. Chennai. Archived from the original on 10 July 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
- ^ "Autos, share autos set to hike fares". The New Indian Express. Chennai: Express Publication. 14 September 2012. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
- ^ Xavier Lopez, Aloysius (27 February 2014). "Bicycle sharing system likely in nine months". The Hindu. Chennai. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
- ^ a b Sasidharan, S. (14 July 2012). "Sea change to Chennai traffic". Deccan Chronicle. Chennai. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
- ^ a b Muthiah, Pg 321
- ^ Srivathsan, A. (16 August 2010). "How electric suburban railway service began". The Hindu. Chennai, India.
- ^ "Metro rail for Chennai?". The Hindu. 21 August 2003. Archived from the original on 23 February 2007. Retrieved 26 February 2009.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ a b Bhatnagar, Gaurav Vivek (22 August 2006). "Chennai metro back on track". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 4 October 2007.
- ^ "Chennai's Koyambedu-Alandur metro closer to opening".
- ^ Sreevatsan, Ajai (29 November 2011). "Will Tiruvottiyur fall on the Metro Rail map?". The Hindu. Chennai, India.
- ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
- ^ Venugopal, Vasudha (9 September 2012). "When wait is longer than the journey". The Hindu. Chennai, India.
- ^ "Traffic statistics – Passengers (Intl+Domestic), Annexure IIIC" (PDF). Airports Authority of India. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
- ^ "Traffic statistics – Aircraft movements (Intl+Domestic), Annexure IIC" (PDF). Airports Authority of India. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
- ^ "New greenfield airport to be set up near Chennai". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 22 May 2007. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
- ^ "Gateway to India for Singapore firms". Business Times. 6 July 2006. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
- ^ Jagannath, G. (14 July 2012). "Green corridor for ambulances". Deccan Chronicle. Chennai. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
- ^ Selvaraj, A. (12 October 2012). "On the fast-track: Now, every other Chennaiite has a vehicle". The Times of India. Chennai. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2012.
- ^ "Phase-II Chennai metro project to cost Rs 36,000 cr". Business Standard. Chennai. 2 March 2014. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
- ^ "Chennai transport sector is fifth largest polluter, says study". The New Indian Express. Chennai. 7 June 2012. Archived from the original on 9 June 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2012.
- ^ "Chennai roads most dangerous in India: NCRB report". IBN Live South. Chennai: IBN Live. 5 July 2012. Archived from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
- ^ Hemalatha, Karthikeyan (26 October 2012). "17% of all fatal accidents in Chennai are hit and run". The Times of India. Chennai. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
- ^ Ramakrishnan, Deepa H. (30 August 2018). "Peripheral Road gets environmental clearance". The Hindu. Chennai: Kasturi & Sons. Retrieved 2 September 2018.