Kerala is a land of well connected towns and cities. The total population of the state is 3.45 Crores in 2020.The population density is more than 860 per Square Kilo meter of land. The Road Length is 145 704 km out of this only 1524 KM is National Highway. Literally thousand people enjoy 4.62 km road in the state which is very much higher than the national average.
The vehicle population also in the state is growing at rate of average 11% per annum. But the growth of road network is developing only at marginal rate. The development of national highways ,which carry more than 70 percent of the traffic is very negligible. The development of Four lane national highways are also are not increasing.
The slowly increasing population as well as fast growing vehicle population without substantial increase in the road infrastructure put maximum pressure on the road network. Preference of own mode of transport rather than public transport as well as conversion of passengers who used public transport system once to own mode of transport ,preferably two wheeler, further increased the traffic pressure on the existing over utilized facilities. This is the primary cause of road congestion in kerala, which is visible each and every roads and junctions in the state.
In the Rural places the road junctions are very narrow and the vehicle flow from all direction are almost equal in volume with slight variations. Some junctions are fitted with Automatic Traffic Lights whereas some are fitted with manual operated traffic signals. The rate of traffic congestion is little high in the traffic regulated junctions. Lack of sufficient space on roads to accommodate vehicle make the issue more serious.
In a signal controlled junction, the approaching vehicles come in two or more lanes and stops for passing signals. When the signal turned on ,these vehicles need to go in the same lane pattern and the road ahead need to have the same or more road width and space to accommodate the incoming vehicles. That is need to be free from parking and any other kind of obstructions. Other wise the approaching vehicle from the signal will be slowed and that will lead to more passing time for the vehicle to clear the junction.
The road junction in the state ,except in National Highways were very old and majority of the junction were existing long before. With the introduction of Motor Transport the vehicle started to ply on the existing infrastructure which were not intended for motor transport. Increase in population lead to the further development of these old roads and junctions and people started to migrate to different places. All these activities and increased vehicle population put more on the traffic infrastructure.
In addition to these factors, people started to steal road carriage way for parking vehicles, public vehicles parking space, petty trade and even for events and meeting. These all together reduced the capacity of the carriage way to reduce movement of vehicles at single point of time.
Kerala has maintained one of the well utilized Public Transportation Facilities when compared to other states. But it is not well designed one. It is developed according to the public demands. Naturally the system got lot of drawbacks but serve the demand of public.
The basic cause for traffic congestion is the excess traffic pressure due to increased Passenger demands. Increased numbers of private vehicles in fact increased the traffic pressure and space demand.
More worse to come
If the present circumstances are continuing the situation will become more worse. The number of vehicles on road are increasing day to day.
Due to pandemic impact people prefer to use own mode of transports. The increase in road infrastructure is almost zero. The public transportation network pandemic hit and collapsed.
All these will be dominant factors for increase in the congestion level . The average speed, both in city and town and other rural area will reduce drastically. As a result travelling time will increase with proportionate increase in emission level.
Possible Solutions
Improvement and enhancement of the Infrastructure is the possible solution. But huge infrastructure development in the state is very difficult due to lack of space or over utilized space. The population density in the town, city as well as adjacent to road is very high. Similarly people are engaged in business activities near the junctions. Any modification on road infrastructure will render them jobless .
Visible Causes of Traffic Congestion
- Narrow Roads
- Bottle necked Junctions
- Illegal Parking on carriage ways
- Delayed signal or un scientific signal control
- Un scientific traffic diversion at bigger junctions
- Illegal parking of Public Service Vehicles On Road Edges
- Presence of Scattered business center
- Poor Road And Junction Design
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