BENGALURU: The city’s traffic has already become notorious with more than one crore vehicles on the roads. To effectively manage traffic flow, the city traffic police have come up with a plan to restrict certain categories of vehicles from entering the city during peak hours from next month.
On weekends and festival days, traffic jams hold up vehicles for hours. Not only that, every day too, there are traffic jams during peak hour and when it rains. To reduce traffic congestion and to increase road safety, the traffic police are preparing to implement new traffic rule in city. Similar rules are already in place in some cities of other states and the Bengaluru traffic police have decided to implement these rules from next month in the city, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Karthik Reddy told Public TV.
Vehicles are categorised based on tonnage, such as heavy vehicles, mid-sized goods vehicles, all India transport, earthmovers, etc. The traffic police are holding discussions to allocate different timing to these five categories of vehicles to ply inside the city and to place restrictions on some time for some type of vehicles, he said.
Talks are being held to bar entry of slow-moving heavy vehicles and all-India transport vehicles into Bengaluru city during peak hours and they may be allowed entry into the city only during non-peak hour. For example, heavy goods vehicles may be barred inside Bengaluru city from 7 am to 10 pm. Similarly, restrictions will be imposed on all-India transport buses from entering the city between 8 am and 9 pm.
Details of the plan were discussed with transport associations concerned, and the order is expected to be implemented from next month, Karthik Reddy said. “Every year, during August-October, we see traffic congestion due to rains. Many people prefer their cars over two-wheelers or public transport. Between November-May, there is less traffic. We are witnessing traffic congestion over the last few days in the city due to rain, waterlogging, tree falls and potholes. During such times, we deploy more personnel and coordinate with GBA to ensure smoother traffic flow”, he added.
