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Looking up to the sky to ease traffic
jam!
By A Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, Sept 27 – A novel idea which was born out of discussion among a group of select citizens at Guwahati Adda, for easing ever growing congestion on Guwahati road has been thrown open for public debate today. A city-based elite forum called ‘Guwahati Adda’ which has a group of top bureaucrates, educationists management gurus, economists, senior journalists as members, has found the Konkan railway corporation’s concept of ‘Sky Bus’ as most suitable way to relieve Guwahati of the complicated traffic congestion. Sky Bus is a newly developed concept of rail based mass transit system with flexibility of bus and absolutely safe unlike Sky Train or Tube Railway. Sky Bus can be called the inverted form of a sky train. Its wheels hang from the rails overhead allowing it to move in the air above the congested city roads. In a city like Guwahati where there is no scope for further widening of roads or construction of underground tube railway, the concept of Sky Bus holds out a most viable option to wriggle out of the suffocation on the road, says AK Absar Hazarika, a member of Guwahati Adda. It will be most suitable for the heavily jammed Noonmati-Jalukbari route having a length of about 19 kilometre. Sky Bus is eco-friendly and a high-speed mass transit system which can transport at least 20,000 passengers in one direction in one hour. It is cost effective (one-fourth the cost of underground metro) and it can become operative in two years for its short gestation period. It also does not require land acquisition and most importantly it does not interfere with existing traffic system. The Sky Bus route can be constructed above the existing road divider at a height of over 5.5 metre. As per the model prepared by Konkan railway for its proposed pilot project for Mumbai, it cost Rs 45 crore per kilometre of Sky Bus route which is much cheaper than construction of tube railway or Sky Train that is fraught with accident hazards. A standard model of Sky Bus having two coaches can carry 300 capacity passenger per coach and is run automatically by four computers out of which at least two have to agree to run the system thereby reduce the chances of accident. It is so designed that in case of head on collisions the passengers will not get hurt as the opposite coaches will never come into contact because of the in-built cushion guarding the bus. At night when there is no commuters, Sky Bus can be engaged for faster disposal of garbage. The Planning Commission of India has been impressed by the concept of Sky Bus developed by Konkar Railway and asked the railway to go for survey in 16 cities in the country including Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Pune and Thane. The concept when presented before top-line scientists and experts in the country by Konkan railway, elicited very positive response. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and Dr A Kakodkar after viewing the presentation by Konkan railway approved it as ‘safe system’. The system must have a dedicated power supply line for avoiding disruption although it is provided with exit in case of emergency. Konkan railway is now planning to sell the concept in European countries while they are in advance stage of grabbing a project connecting Sharjah and Dubai. Spurred by the response of the Planning Commission to the Sky Bus concept, the members of ‘Guwahait Adda’ feel that an initiative should be taken in Assam also to instal the cost effective and less time consuming system of mass traffic in Guwahati. The initiative has to come from government of Assam only. However, ‘Guwahati Adda’ has already written a letter to Konkan railway drawing their attention to the traffic congestion problem in the city and stating that Sky Bus would be an viable alternative here. The railway has responded by asking for traffic data which have also been sent. |
