How Amaravati can be a True Smart City

How Amaravati can be a True Smart City

Amaravati, the upcoming capital of Andhra Pradesh, is touted to be a major game changer in Indian cities. While it will be the fourth major planned State Capital, after Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh and Gandhinagar, it will be the first major Smart City in India as a State Capital.

The Capital Region Development Authority [CRDA] which is the planning authority for the upcoming city has planned to have 9 sub-cities of 6000 acres each and three metro rail corridors.

Among other plans, Amaravati is also poised to get a transparent, underwater tunnel through the River Krishna as well.

Now, all this sure sounds rosy on paper, but fancy stuff isn’t what we’re looking for right now. What we need is functionality. Here are some key pointers that I have decided to put across for Amaravati’s transport, which will help livability in the city massively.

Create a new entity from scratch for Amaravati’s transport. That’s right. A new entity, solely for transport within the Capital Region. It can be either a Municipal-run body like BEST, or a State-run body like MTC. However, this body should be a Unified body on the lines of Transport for London [TfL] or New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority [MTA]. Let this authority or agency handle buses, trains, and also be a nodal point for autorickshaws/taxis. The Transco can also be jointly managed by all three levels of government. Road related works can remain under existing agencies like the Public Works Department or Andhra Pradesh Road Development Corporation

Amaravati must not rely on APSRTC or Indian Railways for its Transport. Buses in Hyderabad were earlier run by the APSRTC, and now by the TSRTC. Rail transit for the new city must be independent of Indian Railways, to prevent congestion and avoid red-tapism on the network like on the Mumbai Suburban Railway. MSRTC operates inter-city buses in Mumbai. BEST operates intra-city services. The other transcos [NMMT, TMT, MBMT, et al] handle services between the different jurisdictions within the MMR. Amaravti might be made up of multiple Municipal bodies for Vijayawada, Guntur and the upcoming city, but transport within these regions must be kept for a single entity that exclusively serves it.

Since the entire city is being built from scratch, the entire Metro corridor needs to be built underground. This will help keep the city aesthetically appealing. If elevated corridors are built, they should use the 25m segment like what Mumbai Metro 1 and incorporate the cantilever station design of the Hyderabad Metro.

Amaravti has the potential to make Bus Rapid Transit Systems [BRTS] work more efficiently than other cities including Ahmedabad and Surat. It can implement them on a large scale as a feeder system to the aforementioned Metro systems. Again, since the city is being built from scratch, bus lanes can be made signal free, making them truly rapid. Trolleybuses, or even trams can be run to make it more eco-friendly.

The new Transco that was spoken about earlier needs to make itself ready for the year it was built for and not the 1950s. All buses need to be fitted with a Passenger Information System [PIS], as well as a system to allow the visually-impaired know the route number and destination of the bus.

Share it:
Share it:

[Social9_Share class=”s9-widget-wrapper”]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You Might Be Interested In

Toward more open, data-driven cities

27 Apr, 2017

Last week marked the two-year anniversary of the official launch of the What Works Cities Initiative, which makes this a …

Read more

Why open data doesn’t mean open government

13 Mar, 2017

Demand for open data in China is gaining traction despite the country’s traditionally closed approach to government. Although there’s no …

Read more

IBM’s Watson IoT hits the skies with Aerialtronics drone deal

20 Sep, 2016

Drones using artificial intelligence soon will be everywhere, monitoring crowds at major events, checking out traffic patterns on busy roads, …

Read more

Recent Jobs

Senior Cloud Engineer (AWS, Snowflake)

Remote (United States (Nationwide))

9 May, 2024

Read More

IT Engineer

Washington D.C., DC, USA

1 May, 2024

Read More

Data Engineer

Washington D.C., DC, USA

1 May, 2024

Read More

Applications Developer

Washington D.C., DC, USA

1 May, 2024

Read More

Do You Want to Share Your Story?

Bring your insights on Data, Visualization, Innovation or Business Agility to our community. Let them learn from your experience.

Get the 3 STEPS

To Drive Analytics Adoption
And manage change

3-steps-to-drive-analytics-adoption

Get Access to Event Discounts

Switch your 7wData account from Subscriber to Event Discount Member by clicking the button below and get access to event discounts. Learn & Grow together with us in a more profitable way!

Get Access to Event Discounts

Create a 7wData account and get access to event discounts. Learn & Grow together with us in a more profitable way!

Don't miss Out!

Stay in touch and receive in depth articles, guides, news & commentary of all things data.