Abstract
Transportation network can be rightly stated as the lifelines of the people that connect both urban and rural areas. In fact they are the indicators of the standard of living. In Metropolitan cities, public transport especially the corporation buses caters to the need of all the sections of the society irrespective of their economic status. Thus there is a need for development of infrastructure by ensuring optimum utilization of available resources without spending much. Maximum comfort and convenience could be given to the public by proper planning, which can be effectively done using GIS.
A case study is proposed for the study of the existing locations of bus stops and ways of improving the existing locations by considering a route between Vadapalani and Besant Nagar in Chennai. The use of GIS and GPS results in better accuracy, making the analysis simpler and less time consuming. The following defects were observed in the present locations of the bus stops:
- In certain areas, the bus stops are closely located resulting in waste of time and space.
- They are sparsely located forcing the people to walk long distances or to take other modes of transport.
- The location of bus stop are found to be hazardous posing danger to other vehicles, and cause traffic congestion.
The methodology going to be adopted is that the existing road network map, which is in hard copy, is digitized. Using GPS the coordinates of bus stop locations and control points are obtained. The digitized map is transformed to the required projection. Using the co-ordinates the bus stop locations are identified on the projected map. A muticriterion buffer analysis is performed using Arc-Info GIS to identify suitable locations for bus stop considering the following parameters:
- Distance
- Importance of location
- Willingness to walk
- Junction points etc.
Maximum and minimum distance between bus stops is set so that it is optimum for its location. The existing bus stops are verified for their proximity to schools, colleges, commercial centers, temples, etc. If not then the bus stop is relocated based on the criteria stated above. The demographic data is considered, as it is important to know the standard of living condition in and around the existing bus stop location. The data is collected manually and incorporated in the studies for each bus stop. If any two bus stop locations are closer and the people are willing to walk, then this can be minimized to a single stop or else if the distance between two bus stops are more, an additional bus stop can be created considering the various criteria. In this way the bus stop locations can be optimized. This optimization has advantage of reducing traffic congestion during peak hours, extra space created by relocation of bus stops can be used for other purposes such creation of parking lot, etc.
The final result of the study would be the optimized bus stop locations with scope for optimum route analysis.