Indian Journal of Spatial Science. An Assessment of Road Traffic Congestion at Park Circus Crossing, Kolkata

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1 Indian Journal of Spatial Science EISSN: homepage: ISSN: An Assessment of Road Traffic Congestion at Park Circus Crossing, Kolkata Dr. Teesta Dey Assistant Professor of Geography Bhairab Ganguly College, Kolkata Article Info Article History Received on: 20 July 2016 Accepted in Revised Form on: 15 August 2016 Available Online on and from: 23 September 2016 Key Words Urban Habitat Vehicular Density Demand Capacity Congestion Level Archaic Management Traffic Transmission Index Delay Rate Modal Mix Abstract Any kind of unplanned urban habitat with rapid population and economic growth is bound to face various problems with varying magnitude. Kolkata is not an exception to it. The extant trafficscape of Kolkata city has been facing extreme traffic congestion in major traffic nodes and important roads. In the last fifty years, exponential growth of vehicles, extreme private transport dependency, inadequate supply of mass transport modes, unplanned road side parking, traffic system insufficiency, poorly planned road network, mixed land use pattern, changing travel demand pattern etc cause road congestion resulting in massive delays, increased fuel wastage, air pollution and monetary loss. The cumulative effect of all these factors leads to the formation of small critical areas which are common hotspots for congestion on urban transport scenario. In this particular context, an attempt has been made to identify the crucial factors causing congestions in ten selected Traffic Intersection Points (TIPs) of Kolkata city, to assess the role and dominance level of these factors, to develop an algorithm to measure the congestion index, to compare the congestion levels among he selected TIPs and finally to identify the possible measures that can be taken for managing the problems and transforming the congested urban habitat into a smooth, fast moving and efficient transport system which accelerates economic growth and the degree of intra and inter-urban linkages for the city dwellers ISSS. All Rights Reserved Introduction Excessive urbanization and urban space crunch lead to many problems for the urban dwellers. In Third World cities like Kolkata, rapid growth of personalised vehicles on limited road space with poor traffic management aggravates the existing urban transport related problems. Despite urban expansion in peripheral zones, everyday a huge number of urban passengers and commuters utilise the core city space for various purposes. The most common form of urban public space utilization is through transportation process where majority of the daily passengers depend either on private cars or on para-transit vehicles like taxis and autos due to paucity of road based mass transport services. The linearity of the existing metro rail line from north to south Kolkata and limited sub-urban rail network system within the city boundary cannot provide a broad city based mass transport service and hence most of the passengers have to depend on road transportation systems. Noticeably Kolkata has lowest road space (approx 6%) in comparison to all other mega cities in India while the number of small vehicles with low carrying capacity has increased significantly over time. This ultimately leads to high vehicular density and the inevitable problem of road traffic congestion. Traffic congestion is the most common transport problem of many cities in the developing world (Chakrabartty, A and Gupta, S., 2015) where the existing road space cannot keep pace with the rapidly increasing vehicular pressure. There are three main approaches to the concept of road traffic congestion. These are I.Demand Capacity Related Approach where congestion occurs when travel demand exceeds road capacity (Md Aftabuzzaman, 2012), vehicular volume is greater than the ability of roadway to carry load, 49 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

2 passengers' wish to travel is more than transport system accommodation and road space has high vehicular density and low speed. ii.delay Travel Time Related Approach where congestion occurs due to imbalance between traffic flow and capacity that causes increased travel time, cost and modification of travel behaviour, delay in travel time, peak period travel time is much greater than free way travel time and traffic speed becomes lesser than the designated road capacity and speed. iii.cost Related Approach where incremental cost occurs from interference among road users (Rao, A.M. and Rao, K.R., 2012). There are a variety of causes for occurrence of traffic congestion in certain cities. The city of Kolkata has its own bunch of reasons for frequent occurrence of traffic congestion in various Traffic Intersection Points (TIPs). These are as follows - Unplanned road network and haphazard growth of the city in various localities such as in the extended part in south west Kolkata along Diamond Harbour Road. Most of the roads are narrow along with roadside parking space and concentration of hawkers like in Behala, Gariahat. Hatibagan areas etc. Mixed land use system is a significant urban trait of Kolkata where concentration of commercial, residential and administrative functions together aggravates the traffic condition and frequent congestion occurs, as in Esplanade, Dalhousie areas etc. Inefficient public road based mass transport system with few public bus services. Dominance of private vehicles and intermediate modes, specifically rapid proliferation of autos which do not at all maintain any traffic rules in most cases. Poor disciplines of the drivers, ignorance and disrespect of traffic rules which is common for most of the auto and private and mini bus drivers. Archaic Management of traffic junctions like in Shyambazar Five Point Crossing, College Street Crossing, Park Circus Seven Point Crossing etc. Poor traffic infrastructure and tighter budget. Shortage of adequately managed transport facilities. Traffic system inefficiency. Absence of road signs in certain roads and flyovers. Weak institutional support. Inadequacy of trained manpower. Lack of coordination between national and subordinate levels of authorities and decision makers. Road blockage by procession etc Study Area with Research Background The city of Kolkata has a significant number of Traffic Intersection Points (TIPs) and Major Road Stretches (MRS) where traffic congestion occurs on a regular basis. These Traffic Vulnerable Zones (TVZs) are usually identified by delineating 500 m radius of buffer area from the TIPs and are designated as Critical Congestion Zone (CCZ) (Jain, V. 2012). Each CCZ has its own distinctive locational aspects and separate reasons for occurrence of congestion. Among various TIPs of Kolkata city, one of the most crucial ones is Park Circus Seven Points Crossing which is located almost at the centre of the city. Considering the severity level of road traffic congestion and its frequency, Park Circus Seven Point Crossing is one of the most vulnerable areas and that is why it is considered as the study area for the assessment of the degree of traffic congestion (Fig 1). This TIP is located in Ward No. 60 in Borough VI. Six major roads approach this TIP and by identifying 500m radius of the CCZ of this TIP, adjacent Wards No. 59, 61, 63 and 64 are also taken for congestion pattern analysis. The approaching roads are Suhrawardy Avenue from North East direction, Park Circus - Bypass Connector from South East, Syed Amir Ali Avenue from South, Circus Avenue from South West, and Shakespeare Sarani from West and Park Street from North West (Fig 2). A small road is also located in the northern direction but as it is not a trunk road, it's not considered for congestion degree analysis. All these six major roads have their own locational and directional aspects that directly influence the severity level of Park Circus Traffic Congestion. Details of the selected roads are given below - i.suhrawardy Avenue (SA) - A 450m stretch of this road is taken for the study purposes which starts from Park Circus TIP and ends at the crossing of Dr. Sundari Mohan Avenue and Darga Road. ii.park Circus - Bypass Connector (PBC) m road stretch up to the crossing of Darga Road and Dr. Biresh Guha Street is considered as the study location. This road has a huge influence as it connects the entire eastern part of Kolkata through Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. iii.syed Amir Ali Avenue (SAAA) m road stretch is identified as the study area up to the crossing of Beck Bagan Row and Samsul Huda Road. It connects the southern part of Kolkata mainly Ballygunge, Gariahat, Dhakuria, Jadavpur etc with the central Kolkata and thus has immense locational importance. iv.circus Avenue (CA) m road stretch is selected up to the Lower Range Road (Ustad Enayat Khan Avenue) for the study. v.shakespeare Sarani (SS) m road length is identified as the study location up to the crossing of AJC Bose Road Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

3 Vi.Park Street (PS) m road stretch is selected up to the Lower Range Road (Ustad Enayat Khan Avenue) for the study. Objectives This work is mainly conducted - 1. To find out the dominant factors of congestion at Park Circus Crossing. 2. To assess the degree of vulnerability by congestion during peak period. 3. To rank the approaching roads on the basis of their role on congestion creation. 4. To search for alternate routes and options to reduce congestion Database The entire work is primary data based where data have been collected under four broad categories. The details of the data type are given in table 1. Methodology For the measurement of degree of congestion, total seven indices are taken for analysis. Each individual index has direct influence on the level of occurrence of congestion but the combined effects reveal the principal factor behind congestion at Park Circus Crossing and also the hierarchical arrangement of roads considering their degree of occurrence of congestion and resulted vulnerability. The selected indicators are Delay Rate (DR), Travel Time Index (TTI), Quality of Traffic Transmission Index (Q - Index), Lane - Length Duration Index (LLDI), Modal Mix (MM), Traffic Volume (TV) and Road Area (RA). Based on these selected indicators all the six approaching roads are arranged hierarchically in descending order of degree of congestion. For congestion measurement, any single criterion may not truly represent the actual scenario and variations. Combination of various congestion creating parameters may help in the identification of dominant factor and hence proper management can be implemented. In this context, an attempt has been made to bring out the variations in congestion creation factors by combining all the selected parameters. Factor analysis has been used to combine these parameters to explain the variations in congestion pattern, identification of dominant parameters and hierarchical arrangement of the approaching roads depending on their degree of congestion and vulnerability. Since many variables are responsible for congestion, it is interesting to search out the factors by grouping the variables using the technique of factor analysis. Here Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method of Factor Analysis has been applied to study the congestion level and pattern by constructing composite indices using IBM SPSS 22 software. Determination of Road Congestion Level There are varieties of indicators for the measurement of congestion. In case of Park Circus TIP, seven indicators are taken for analysis which can directly assess the severity level of road congestion. These are as follows - i. Delay Rate (DR): The initial concept of delay rate was developed by Lomax et. al. (1997) based on travel rate. In a simplified way, Delay Rate is the difference between the time required to cross a specific distance within the CCZ through a TIP during peak and off peak periods. In other words it is the difference between Actual Travel Time (seconds per km) and Acceptable Travel Time (seconds per km). Here Acceptable Travel Time denotes the minimum time required to cover the specific distance on a traffic free road. Higher DR value indicates more congestion level within the road stretch. DR = (Travel Rate during Peak Period Travel Rate during Off-Peak Period). ii.travel Time Index (TTI): This index was proposed in the Urban Mobility Report (Shrank and Lomax, 2005). It is expressed by comparing travel time in free flow condition and during peak period on a fixed road segment through a TIP (Lomax, T.J., 1990). It represents how greater the peak period travel time is than the free flow travel time. Higher the TTI, higher will be the severity of congestion on a road segment or of a TIP. TTI = (Peak Period Travel Time /Free Flow Travel Time) From Table - 2, it has been identified that Circus Avenue has maximum delay rate due to huge difference in travel time during peak and off peak period while in Syed Amir Ali Avenue vehicles take more than four times travel time during peak period in comparison to free flow period. Due to the existence of a flyover on Park Circus - Bypass Connector, this road has least congestion. This is now acting as a one way road from Park Circus to Bypass during maximum period of the day. Vehicles coming from opposite direction have to ply on surface road and bifurcate to either Darga Road or Congress Exhibition roads depending on the direction of the flow. Hence no vehicles reach Park Circus Crossing directly from the Bypass Connector. Shakespeare Sarani has least DR and TTI due to its one way traffic pattern. Although it reveals the fact that roads having one way traffic system in different time slots of a day experience least congestion, but that cannot be applied to all other roads as they are trunk roads and connect major parts of Kolkata with Park Circus. Iii.Quality of Traffic Transmission Index (Q - Index): It is defined as a function of average speed and the number and sum of speed changes (Levinson and Lomax, 1996). During free flow usually the average speed of a car is high and number of gear changes is low. The total number of speed changes and the 51 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

4 difference between maximum and minimum speed should also be low in a free way. On the contrary, Congested roads always experience frequent gear changes and differences in speed in a higher order. Here high Q Index value represents less congestion and vice versa. Table - 3 depicts the degree of resistance faced in the free flow of a car on a congested road. It is clearly identifiable that except Shakespeare Sarani and Bypass Connector, average car speed is 40 or less than that. Circus Avenue represents the worst scenario where the vehicles move at a very low speed with frequent gear and speed changes. This reveals maximum occurrence of congestion on this road which is properly depicted by the Q Index. On Shakespeare Sarani and Bypass Connector, vehicles move freely and smoothly without frequent speed changes and hence a comparatively congestion free traffic situation is observed. iv. Lane - Length Duration Index (LLDI): It is a measure of extent and duration of free way congestion as developed by Cottrell (1991) in a study of congestion in 35 urban areas. The LMDI value of each urban area is the sum of the product of congested free way lane length (in km) and duration of congestion (in seconds) for individual roadway segment and is calculated in a modified way. LLDI = (Congested Lane Length x Duration of Congestion) Table - 4 identifies the extent of road congestion on all these approaching roads of Park Circus Connector. On average, traffic signals remain closed for 120 to 180 seconds at the Park Circus Crossing for each approaching road and the time duration of closed traffic signal varies according to the vehicular pressure on different roads. But from this LLDI it has been identified that, during peak period the waiting time of vehicles sometimes exceed 400 seconds and the length of waiting vehicles extends more than 300 metre. Such condition is rather common at this crossing and hence creates severe traffic congestion on a daily basis. Although the waiting time is very low for Shakespeare Sarani and Bypass Connector, but the length of waiting vehicles is high in Shakespeare Sarani mainly due to very narrow road space. v. Traffic Volume (TV): It is a simple measurement of traffic volume of passenger and goods carriage in each road segment at a particular TIP at a particular time interval during both peak and off peak period. TV = (No. of 2Wheelers + No. of 3 Wheelers + No. of 4Wheelers) vi. Modal Mix (MM): It is simply the number of variety of modes (both passenger and goods) moving on a particular road stretch. A roadway having limited no. of modal types has comparatively less congestion. But roads having all the variety of small to large vehicles without any specific roadway maintenance cause severe congestion. Noticeably traffic volume during peak period is maximum in case of Bypass Connector (Table 5) but still this road has very low occurrence of congestion due to the existence of the Parama Island Flyover. Limited vehicles can ply on this Flyover which also accelerates the average speed of the vehicles. Due to high degree of congestion, passengers usually avoid Circus Avenue or take the AJC Bose Road Flyover. But public vehicles and vehicles of different destination have to depend on this road. Suhrawardy Avenue and Syed Amir Ali Avenue have high traffic volume and consequently high degree of congestion. vii. Road Area (RA): It is the area of the selected road segment approaching to a particular node within the CCZ. Here road length and road widths are measured separately for each road segment to get the area and an idea of estimated carrying capacity of the roads. Road width is one of the most important determinants of congestion occurrence as narrow roads have two or three lanes which are not sufficient to carry both side vehicular flows during peak period at the centre of the city. Hence due to narrow road (Table 6), Shakespeare Sarani and Parama Island Flyover on Bypass Connector have one way traffic flow during peak period and are thus less susceptible to congestion. On the contrary, despite Circus Avenue and Suhrawardy Avenue having larger road width, huge vehicular pressure on both directions increases the severity levels of traffic congestion. Although Circus Avenue has larger road width, but due to the existence of the AJC Bose Road Flyover, the actual space for vehicular flow gets reduced which also creates congestion on this road. Based on the derived values of the seven selected indicators, the six approaching roads of Park Circus are arranged in Descending order to show their degree of traffic congestion. From this table 7 it is clear that Circus Avenue and Syed Amir Ali Avenue are the most congestion prone approaching roads of Park Circus Crossing whereas Shakespeare Sarani and Park Circus - Bypass Connector have least chance of congestion occurrence. Suhrawardy Avenue and Park Street are also prone to congestion but with lesser vulnerability. Identification of Dominant Indicators of Congestion All the seven selected indicators have direct influence on the severity measurement of traffic congestion. But for the identification of most effective indices, Principal Component Method has been implemented. For determining the dominant factors that mostly influence the occurrence of congestion, total seven factors are selected to run Principal Component Analysis method. The scenario represents the traffic pattern in Here factor analysis is carried out with PCA method and four components were extracted. For the determination of the dominant factors a standard value of ±0.900 is selected, as component scores above this value is 52 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

5 considered to be important. In component matrix (table 8), two indices are identified as dominant in the first component. These are Delay rate and Q - Index. For the verification of the selected dominant factors, the component matrix is again rotated using Varimax methods with Kaiser Normalization and is converged in 5 iterations (Table - 9). Here 4 indices are identified as dominant. These are TTI in component 1, LLDI in component 2, MM in component 3 and TV in component 4 only. Both the component and rotated component matrices explain 99.66% of the total variance up to four components (Table - 10). In component matrix, component 1 explains 62.54%, component 2 explains 18.94%, component 3 explains 11.42% and component 4 explains 6.75%. Up to second component it is far more explained with 81.48%. In case of rotated component matrix 30.82% is explained in component 1, 28.77% in component 2, 23.56% in component 3 and 16.49% in component. Ranking of the Roads based on Occurrence and Level of Road Traffic Congestion Finally from the factor loadings, four factor scores have been computed (Table - 11) where the first factor score clearly categorizes the roads considering their severity of congestion. The calculated ranking is cross checked and verified from field observations and real data users. The final ranking exhibits the categorization of the six roads into four levels of degree of congestion (Table - 12). Maximum occurrence of congestion is observed in Syed Amir Ali Avenue, followed by Circus Avenue. Park Street, Park Circus - Bypass Connector and Suhrawardy Avenue has comparatively lesser magnitude of congestion and least congestion is observed in case of Shakespeare Sarani. The details of the locational and directional aspects that influence the occurrence and severity of congestion of each road is explained herewith. 1.Syed Amir Ali Avenue is the most congestion prone road where the average waiting time of vehicles at Park Circus Crossing during Peak Period is more than four minutes on an average.although the CCZ on this road is up to the crossing of Beck Bagan Row Road, but congestion on this road is mainly influenced by far away localities like Gariahat Crossing and Ballygunge Crossing. The Park Circus approaching part of this road does not only contain vehicles from other six roads but also from AJC Bose Road via Beck Bagan Row Road, from Dr. Sundari Mohan Avenue via Darga Road and from Park Circus Bypass Connector via Congress Exhibition Road (Fig 3). From Gariahat Crossing to Park Circus Crossing, eight major roads meet with Syed Amir Ali Avenue, these are Rashbehari Avenue, Hazra Road, Broad Street, Guru Saday Dutta Road, Ballygunge Park Road, Beckbagan Row Road, Nasiruddin Road and Congress Exhibition Road. Some of the local land use have huge influence on the occurrence of congestion on this road such as, the presence of Quest Mall, Park Circus Tram Depot, Islamia Hospital, Modern High School, Haldiram Food Centre, Birla Temple, Ballygunge Science College, Pantaloons, several banks and of course Gariahat Market. 2.Circus Avenue has high Delay Rate, Travel Time Index, Q - Index and LLDI due to narrow road, huge pressure of private vehicles and buses and direct connectivity with some important traffic nodes like at Minto Park and Exide crossing. A huge chunk of vehicles come directly from AJC Bose road and at the crossing of Circus Avenue and AJC Bose road, maximum congestion is created. This has direct effect on the occurrence of Congestion at Park Circus Crossing. Within the stretch of 850m from Park Circus Crossing to AJC Bose Road Crossing, 10 roads meet with Circus Avenue with huge private vehicular pressure. Among them Beck Bagan Row Road and Lower Range Road are quite important. From Exide Crossing to AJC Bose Road-Circus Avenue Crossing four major roads viz. Ballygunge Circular Road, Sarat Bose Road, Wood Burn Park and Lee Road meet with the AJC Bose road which makes this stretch much more congested (Fig 4). This road has maximum concentration of various urban activities like presence of many banks, govt. and private offices, hotels (like hotel Hindusthan International), Schools (Like La Martiniere for Boys and Girls), Colleges (Like Sri Shikshayatan, AJC Bose College), Hospitals (Like Park Clinic, Belle Vue Nursing home) etc. which have direct influence on passenger and vehicular pressure and occurrence of road congestion. Such functional concentration interrupts free vehicular flow which results in frequent speed changes, difference in maximum and minimum speeds, high waiting time, long stretch of waiting vehicles etc. 3.Park Street has comparatively moderately high road congestion due to its directional aspect. This road connects Chowringhee Road and AJC Bose Road with Park Circus and through this TIP, massive number of vehicles get connectivity from Central Kolkata to Eastern and Southern Kolkata. It is the best possible road to connect Central Kolkata with E.M.Bypass and hence this road faces enormous number of both public and private vehicles. From Park Circus Crossing to AJC Bose Road crossing, five roads meet with Park Street with a significant number of vehicles. These are Jannagar Road, Fazlul Haque Sarani, Mrigendralal Mitter Road, Monoranjan Roychoudhury Road and Karaya Road (Fig 5). But vehicles from Esplanade, Russel Street, Mirza Galib Street, Camac Street, Wood Street and Rafi Ahamed Kidwai Road also use this road as a major connecting road with Eastern Kolkata. That is why this road experiences maximum variety of modal mix. 4.Park Circus - Bypass Connector was once one of the most congested roads in Kolkata due to its connectivity between Eastern Kolkata with Central and South Kolkata. This two-way road used to create congestion not only near Park Circus Crossing, but in an elongated pattern up to Tiljala and sometimes up to Science City. But the construction of Parama Island Flyover from Park Circus Crossing up to The Spring Club on E.M.Bypass, has almost entirely reduced the severity of road congestion on Park Circus - Bypass 53 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

6 Connector Road. The Flyover started its operation from th 27 October, 2015 without being entirely complete. According to the original plan, this flyover has to be connected with the AJC Bose Road Flyover which now connects Park Circus Crossing to Race Course above the Circus Avenue. To reduce the vehicular pressure both on Circus Avenue and Park Circus - Bypass Connector, the linking of these two Flyovers would be very effective. But despite the construction of Parama Island Flyover, congestion still occurs at the junction of Congress Exhibition Road and Darga Road Crossing due to the bifurcation of vehicles from Park Circus - Bypass Connector on these two roads either to connect Dr. Sundari Mohan Avenue or Circus Avenue. Vehicles passing between Park Circus - Bypass Connector and Dr. Sundari Mohan Avenue via Darga Road create congestion on Suhrawardy Avenue (Fig 6). On the other hand, vehicles passing between Park Circus - Bypass Connector and Circus Avenue via Congress Exhibition Road and Nasidruddin Road create congestion both on Syed Amir Ali Avenue and on Circus Avenue. All these congestions have direct impact on the occurrence of large scale congestion at the Park Circus Crossing as a whole. 5.Suhrawardy Avenue represents a comparatively better picture than the earlier roads. On this road, congestion mainly occurs due to the presence of Don Bosco School, Lady Brabourne College and Rahamani Masjid. Major chunk of vehicles from Moulali to south Kolkata passes through this road and face huge congestion from the crossing of Dr. Sundari Mohan Avenue and Suhrawardy Avenue up to Park Circus Crossing (Fig 7). Parking of vehicles along this road is one of the major reasons behind such congestion. However having maximum road width, this road faces less congestion than the previous roads. 6.Shakespeare Sarani exhibits least occurrence of congestion as this road has only one way traffic service. This road connects Park Circus with AJC Bose Road and Chowringhee Road just parallel to Park Street. This is also another reason behind less congestion as maximum vehicles opt for Park Street to connect AJC Bose Road with Park Circus. But the stretch of Shakespeare Sarani between AJC Bose Road Crossing to Chowringhee Road Crossing is highly congested due to influx of vehicles from 10 different roads that meet with this road. These are Rawdon Street, Sarojini Naidu Sarani, Loudon Street, Outram Street, Hungerford Street, Wood Street, Camac Street, Pretoria Street, Little Russel Street and Lord Sinha Street (Fig 6). Road congestion in this stretch leads to congestion at Park Circus Crossing indirectly. This is a highly posh area of Kolkata with huge concentration of multinational and private offices. This causes parking on both sides of the road despite the fact that the road width is least in comparison to other approaching roads. This is another reason of occurrence of road congestion on this stretch. Management of Traffic Congestion Proper strategic and effective measures should be taken by the state government for the reduction of the magnitude of traffic congestion not only at Park Circus Seven Points Crossing but also for other important Traffic Intersection Points in Kolkata city. Some of the steps that can be taken for congestion management in this locality are as following Controlling the volume of traffic especially small personalised vehicles within the Critical Congestion Zones (CCZ), with radius 500m from the node during morning and evening peak periods is of utmost requirement. The routes of the vehicles can be changed through AJC Bose Road, Darga Road, Beck Bagan Row Road etc. By analyzing the existing network pattern of bus routes through Park Circus and demand patterns of the passengers, new bus routes can be initiated along certain roads through this node where demands are maximum during peak periods. Basically, more bus routes with higher frequency during peak periods, are quite imperative for reducing private vehicular pressure on roads. Special small multi-directional bus routes can be developed at Park Circus Crossing which can take passengers to the nearest metro and railway stations, major bus stops on Trunk Roads or to important localities. This can be done under Public Private Partnership (PPP) Project. Enhanced parking charge should be imposed on the vehicles within the CCZ to reduce parking problems and make the roads free from parked cars. This will help in accelerating average speed of the vehicles, increase vehicular carrying capacity of the roads and reduce congestion problem. Apart from that, specific parking zones can be identified only where cars can be parked during peak periods within the CCZ. Even special movement cost can also be imposed on the small vehicles which enter the CCZ of Park Circus Crossing during peak periods. This will definitely reduce car pressure on the roads and accelerate traffic flow. New, highly developed air conditioned buses can be made to ply along the approach roads which can attract passengers who use their own cars. The width of the existing roads can also be increased on both sides of the approach roads of Park Circus Crossing. Proper signalling system is crucial to manage the vehicular pressure and to reduce congestion. Based on vehicular pressure of each approaching roads, signalling time should be altered in different times of the day and for different roads. 8) Alternate roads can be identified to which vehicles can be diverted to reduce congestion in certain cases. 9) During peak periods, all types of goods carriages should be banned within the CCZ. Efficient traffic surgents are needed for reducing congestion as they can make decisions and take fast action for eliminating congestion problems in certain situations. Pedestrians must have their own Right of Way (RoW) and specific delineation of roads and footpath is extremely necessary to reduce chances 54 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

7 of accident and hence congestion problems. Any kind of political or apolitical procession should be restricted on major roads, at least during the peak period, to reduce congestion problems. Maintenance of specific lanes for the moving vehicles is quite important to reduce congestion and for that every driver should maintain the basic traffic rules. 14) Specific bus lanes should be delineated to eliminate cross laning problems. Tram lines should be shifted near the pavements for the sake of passengers' safety and for reducing congestion at the mid-lane of the roads. At the crossings, the turning radius of tramcars or big buses should be managed in a proper way through adequate zoning of such vehicles. Finally it is the responsibity of all the stakeholders of road transportation system in this particular node to maintain the traffic system and reduce congestion probability. Conclusion Combination of the selected indices can prove helpful in detecting the level and site of traffic congestion at the selected node. Setting video cameras to get the traffic data is also helpful in this method, but here the main intention was to face the real congestion experience on road to assess the degree of vulnerability of the daily passengers. Even video cameras are costly and detecting congestion requires intelligent image processing techniques/software which again requires skilled personnel with adequate software background or knowledge (Mandal et. al., 2011). Integrated transport policy is now of high demand in each and every overurbanised city to combat traffic congestion problem. Governments should take stringent measures to this effect in accordance with what Curitiba, Bogota or Singapore have implemented to reduce congestion problems. Finally like this particular node, each traffic congestion prone nodes should be analysed separately to find out their locational aspects and reasons of congestion. Only then, would it be possible to reduce this problem in a holistic way in different parts of this city, be it in the core zone with high vehicular pressure or in the peripheral areas with poor road network development. References 1. Chakrabartty, A and Gupta, S. (2015): Estimation of Congestion Cost In The City Of KolkataA Case Study, Current Urban Studies. 2. Cottrell, W.D. (1991): Measurement of the extent and duration of traffic congestion in urban areas, st Proc. ITE 61 Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.: ITE. 3. Jain, V (2012): Road Traffic Congestion in the Developing World, ACM, Atlanta, GA. 4. Levinson, H.S. and Lomax, T.J. (1996): Developing a travel time congestion index, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No Lomax, T.J. (1990): Estimating transportation corridor mobility, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No Lomax, T., Turner, S., Shunk, G., Levinson, H.S., Pratt, R.H., Bay, P.N. and Douglas, G.B. (1997): Quantifying congestion, volume 1 & 2, NCHRP Report 398, Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board. 7. Mandal, K et. al. (2011): Road Traffic Congestion Monitoring and Measurement using Active RFID and GSM Technology, Preprint submitted to 14th International IEEE Annual Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems. 8. Md Aftabuzzaman (2012): Measuring Traffic Congestion- A Critical Review, 30th Australasian Transport Research Forum 9. Rao, A.M. and Rao, K.R. (2012): Measuring Urban Traffic Congestion A Review, International Journal for Traffic and Transport Engineering, vol.2 (4). 10.Schrank, D. and Lomax, T. (1997): Urban roadway congestion: , volume 1 &2, Research Report , Texas: Texas Transportation Institute. Table 1: Details of Primary Data Base Categories Data Types Description Travel Time Travel time between any two selected TIPs through the Park Circus TIP on major approaching roads during morning peak (10:00-11:00am) and off-peak (8:00-9:00am) period Time Closed Traffic Duration of Closed Traffic Signal on each approaching road at Park Signal Time Circus TIP during morning peak period Waiting Time of Vehicles Waiting time of the first row vehicles on each approaching road to cross the Park Circus TIP during morning peak period Mass, Intermediate Mass, Intermediate and Private Vehicular Volume on each Traffic Volume and Private Vehicular Volume approaching roads at Park Circus TIP during morning peak and off peak period Road Length Length of each approaching road from Park Circus Crossing up to the boundary of CCZ Length Road width Road width of each approaching road in metre at the TIP Length of waiting vehicle Length of waiting vehicle on each approaching road from the TIP during closed traffic signal Vehicular Speed Maximum, Minimum and Average Car Speed Average No. of speed changes / km Maximum, Minimum and Average Car Speed on selected road stretch through Park Circus TIP during morning peak period Average No. of car speed changes per km on the selected road stretch through Park Circus TIP 55 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

8 Roads Table 2: DR and TTI of Different Roads Peak Period Off - Peak Travel Time in Period Travel Sec. Time in Sec. Delay Rate (DR) in Sec. Travel Time Index (TTI) Syed Amir Ali Avenue Circus Avenue Shakespeare Sarani Park Street Suhrawardy Avenue Park Circus - Bypass Connector Data Source: Collected and Prepared by the Author, 2016 Roads Table 3: Q - Index of Different Roads Average Difference Speed (km per between Max hour) and Min Speed No.ofSpeed Changes Q-Index Syed Amir Ali Avenue Circus Avenue Shakespeare Sarani Park Street Suhrawardy Avenue Park Circus - Bypass Connector Data Source: Collected and Prepared by the Author, 2016 Table 4: LLDI of Different Roads Roads Length of Waiting Duration of Vehicleinmetre Congestion in Sec LLDI Syed Amir Ali Avenue ,860 Circus Avenue ,21,800 Shakespeare Sarani ,830 Park Street ,400 Suhrawardy Avenue ,700 Park Circus - Bypass Connector Data Source: Collected and Prepared by the Author, 2016 Table 5: Traffic Volume and Modal Mix of Different Roads Roads Traffic Volume during Peak Period Modal Mix Syed Amir Ali Avenue Circus Avenue Shakespeare Sarani Park Street Suhrawardy Avenue Park Circus - Bypass Connector Data Source: Collected and Prepared by the Author, 2016 Table 6: Area of Different Roads Roads Road Length (m) Road Width in metre Road Area in sq. metre Syed Amir Ali Avenue Circus Avenue Shakespeare Sarani Park Street Suhrawardy Avenue Park Circus - Bypass Connector Data Source: Collected and Prepared by the Author, 2016 Degree of Congestion High Table 7: Ranking of the Approaching Roads based on the Degree of Congestion DR TTI Q - Index LLDI TV MM RA CA SAAA CA CA PBC PS SA SAAA CA SAAA SA SA SA CA SA SA SA SAAA SAAA SAAA SAAA PS PS PS SS SS CA PS PBC PBC PBC PS PS PBC PBC Low SS SS SS PBC CA SS SS Data Source: Collected and Prepared by the Author, Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

9 Table 8: Component Matrix Components DR Q - Index RA LLDI TTI MM TV Table 9: Rotated Component Matrix Components TTI Q - Index DR LLDI RA MM TV Table 10: Total Variance Explained of Congestion Creating Factors Initial Eigen values Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings Components Percentage Cumulative Percentage Cumulative Total of Variance Percentage Total of Variance Percentage Data Source: Computed by the Author, 2016 Table 11: Factor Scores of the Approaching Roads of Park Circus Crossing Approaching Roads Factor Score 1 Factor Score 2 Factor Score 3 Factor Score 4 Syed Amir Ali Avenue Circus Avenue Shakespeare Sarani Park Street Suhrawardy Avenue Park Circus - Bypass Connector Data Source: Computed by the Author, 2016 Table 12: Ranking of the Approaching Roads Based on Their Degree of Congestion Approaching Roads Factor Score 1 Degree of Congestion Syed Amir Ali Avenue Very High Circus Avenue High Park Street Park Circus - Bypass Connector Suhrawardy Avenue Moderate Shakespeare Sarani Low Data Source: Computed by the Author, 2016 Fig.1: Location of the Study Area 57 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260

10 Fig. 2: Roads approaching Park Circus Crossing Fig. 3: Flow of Vehicles towards Sayd Amir Ali Avenue Fig. 4: Flow of Vehicles towards Circus Avenue Fig. 5: Flow of Vehicles towards Park Circus and Shakespeare Sarani Fig. 6: Flow of Vehicles towards Park Circus - Bypass Connector Fig. 7: Flow of Vehicles towards Suhrawardy Avenue Dr. Teesta Dey Assistant Professor of Geography Bhairab Ganguly College, Kolkata teestadey08@yahoo.co.in 58 Advanced Science Index...ID=1260