Saturday, August 28, 2010

After Feedback from Traffic Trails in Routes for athletes may Change

Even as the Delhi traffic police starts with the trial runs of the Commonwealth Games lane in the city, the organizing committee (OC) is trying to ‘‘fine-tune’’ the route that the athletes and delegates will be taking during the Games period. Talking about the transport plans of the upcoming Delhi Games, special director general, Jiji Thomson, and in charge, transport function, said, ‘‘Though the routes have been decided based on the recommendations of the UTTIPEC, we are waiting for feedback from the traffic trials to fine-tune the route.’’

Thomson’s comment comes even as the Delhi traffic police has announced measures to ensure strict adherence to lanes by Delhi’s traffic. According to OC officials, the dedicated lanes will be used to ferry more than 15,000 people during the Games, besides thousands of OC staff and volunteers. To ferry these people, the OC has divided the transport solutions into groups. The first group, T1, consists of a dedicated car service of around 485 cars with drivers, which will transport delegates from their accommodation to venues and back. T2 will be a motor pool of 1,000 cars available through a call car service while T3 will consist of 349 dedicated AC buses for the athletes. Shuttle service will be provided for individual sports as well as exclusive team buses for team sports. Twenty five routes have been identified for transporting the athletes. A separate bus service will be provided for the media and technical officials. The transport services are available from September 23.

The cars Indigo and SUVs have been provided by Tata Motors, along with 3,000 drivers. Ashish Kumar, deputy director general (transport) of the OC, added that recovery cranes would be set up in 15 locations to ensure that buses which break down on roads don’t create traffic problems.

‘Fifteen Taveras will be kept on stand-by for tyre punctures and 15 bikes for any breakdowns that may occur,’’ added Kumar. Each car in the fleet will be fitted with GPS while a transport operation centre will be set up at the OC headquarters for real time monitoring and tracking.

The OC has also made provisions to ensure assistance from the support staff is easily available. Drivers and other staff will wear a tag saying, ‘‘I can speak English’’ to enable that, added Thomson.

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