DRAFT Coimbatore Rapid Mass rapid transit feasibility study Institute for Transportation and Development Policy Transport Department & Commissionerate of Municipal Administration, Government of Tamil Nadu May 2015 May 2015 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Feel free to copy, distribute, and transmit, as long as you attribute the work. Prepared by Jaya Bharathi Bathmaraj Kashmira Dubash Christopher Kost Sriram Surianarayanan With generous support from i Preface Coimbatore is a prominent industrial hub and second largest city in the state of Tamil Nadu. The city has been witnessing rapid growth of vehicles especially cars and two wheelers. Due to the high vehicle volumes, there is significant traffic congestion in the inner city. Though walking and cycling account for a quarter of trips in Coimbatore, most streets lack dedicated pedestrian and cycling facilities. Even where footpaths are available, they are either narrow or encroached by utilities and parked vehicles. The existing public transport system served by TNSTC does not have adequate good quality buses and is characterised by poor frequency, longer waiting times, and poor quality bus shelters. Due to lack of high quality public transport and non-motorised facilities, the city is seeing increased dependency for personal transport for even shorter trips. Most existing efforts to reduce traffic congestion have been focused on building grade separators and widening roads—initiatives that are primarily intended to benefit users of personal motor vehicles. To actively promote safe and accessible sustainable transport with focus on reducing vehicular increase and pollution, the Commissionerate of Municipal Administration, Tamil Nadu, in partnership with ITDP has initiated the “Sustainable Cities through Transport” process. The process helps cities like Coimbatore to identify existing transport challenges and develop proposals towards encouraging more walking and cycling; implementation of high quality public transport system, and effective parking management in the city. Now in partnership with the Transport Department, ITDP has worked with Coimbatore to study the city’s public transport needs in more detail. The outcome is this feasibility study, which identifies a 74 km network for rapid transit. This document discusses the existing transportation system challenges, and identifies four corridors to implement an affordable, accessible, flexible, and cost effective mass rapid transit system. ii Contents 1. Executive summary .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 MRTS mode selection ............................................................................................................... 2 1.3 BRT for Coimbatore .................................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Corridor selection ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.5 Corridor designs ........................................................................................................................ 7 1.6 Capital and operating cost ......................................................................................................... 9 1.7 Institutional arrangement ........................................................................................................... 9 1.8 Implementation timeline ......................................................................................................... 10 2. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 12 2.1 The path to sustainable mobility ............................................................................................. 12 2.2 About this report ...................................................................................................................... 14 2.3 About the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy ............................................ 14 3. Transport in Coimbatore ................................................................................................................. 15 3.1 City overview .......................................................................................................................... 15 3.2 Current transport conditions .................................................................................................... 16 3.3 Prior studies ............................................................................................................................. 20 4. On-going projects ........................................................................................................................... 23 4.1 Model Roads Programme ........................................................................................................ 23 4.2 Parking management ............................................................................................................... 23 4.3 Greenways ............................................................................................................................... 24 5. Vision and goals ............................................................................................................................. 27 5.1 Transport scenarios for Coimbatore ........................................................................................ 27 6. Planning for mass rapid transit ....................................................................................................... 30 6.1 MRT background .................................................................................................................... 30 6.2 Coimbatore corridor demand .................................................................................................. 30 6.3 Choosing the right MRT mode ................................................................................................ 34 6.4 BRT: The right mode for Coimbatore ..................................................................................... 37 6.5 Summary of key features of BRT ........................................................................................... 38 7. System operations ........................................................................................................................... 41 7.1 BRT services ........................................................................................................................... 41 7.1 Ridership estimate ................................................................................................................... 48 iii 7.2 Future system planning ........................................................................................................... 48 7.3 Fare collection ......................................................................................................................... 49 7.4 Information management system ............................................................................................ 57 7.5 Corridor management .............................................................................................................. 58 8. Physical design ............................................................................................................................... 60 8.1 Relationship between vehicles, stations and corridors ............................................................ 60 8.2 BRT lanes ................................................................................................................................ 61 8.3 Stations .................................................................................................................................... 62 8.4 Carriageway / bus lane specifics ............................................................................................. 66 8.5 BRT extension stops ................................................................................................................ 66 8.6 Access to stops and stations .................................................................................................... 68 8.7 Vehicles ................................................................................................................................... 70 8.8 Terminals and interchange stations ......................................................................................... 71 8.9 Multi-modal integration .......................................................................................................... 76 8.10 Corridor cross sections .......................................................................................................... 78 8.11 Intersections .......................................................................................................................... 86 8.12 Corridor design elements ...................................................................................................... 91 8.13 Depots .................................................................................................................................... 97 9. BRT supporting elements ............................................................................................................