Smart Parking Policy For Bhubaneswar Very Soon

Bhubaneswar: Taking note of the vehicular traffic rush in Bhubaneswar, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation is going to formulate a smart parking policy very soon.

The new parking policy will be jointly formulated by BMC, Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and Commissionerate Police.

“The objective of the new parking policy is to substantially bring down the number of vehicles plying on city roads with special focus on low carbon mobility, public transport and non-motorised transport,” Traffic DCP Sagarika Nath said.

Talking to the media, General Manager, Smart City (Technology) Seshadeb Panda, said the process for the formulation of the new policy has just started. In the absence of specific parking policy, people are parking vehicles at wrong places resulting in traffic congestion. “We are working on the new policy and hope to implement it in 3-4 months,” he said.

As per data available with the Commerce and Transport Department, about one lakh new vehicles (10.4 percent) are being registered in Bhubaneswar every year. As there are no alternative roads, there has been heavy traffic congestion in the city. Taking this into consideration, a decision has been taken to formulate area traffic management plan in consultation with experts in which there will be a separate traffic plan for each area in the city. Besides, steps will be taken to construct parallel roads in the area where there is heavy traffic rush.

Besides, to bring down the number of vehicles plying on busy thoroughfares, experts have proposed the collection of more parking fees.

“You can solve the parking problem by putting a price on parking by categorising the streets in terms of the number of vehicles. There should be less parking fee in areas having less vehicular traffic and vice-versa so that people start behaving differently,” said South Asia Director at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), Shreya Gadepalli.