I. INTRODUCTION
Few cities in the world have the power to attract and motivate a casual visitor to move there permanently. Bangalore is one of those rare cities that makes people who are new to the city to call themselves proud Bangaloreans. Bangalore, with a wonderful climate is already a pensioner's Paradise. With well developed residential areas, broad roads with well grown trees on both sides, good shopping malls, no wonder people prefer to move here permanently.
Bangalore was already called the Electronic City of India but the establishment of the Silicon Park on the out skirts has converted it into the Silicon City of the world. The city is the playground of many Indian as well as multinational Information Technological (I.T) and Bio Technological (B.T) companies. Bangalore has made a niche for itself in the international arena in terms of this growth and with major players in the IT industry gaining foothold here, Bangalore has come to be best known within India for being the country's un-official high-tech capital.
The City of Bangalore has been growing at a rapid pace on all fronts. It was Kempegowda who was responsible for building the modern city of Bangalore (c1537), erecting a mud fort here to the north of the now existing fort which covered the area of Avenue Road and its surroundings. New extensions were added to the old town by creating Chamarajapet and Sheshadripuram in 1892. Two new bigger extensions, Basavanagudi and Malleshwaram, Kalasipalyam (near the old fort) and Gandhinagar were laid out between 1921-1931. During the post-independence period Kumara Park came into existence in 1947 and Jayanagar was inaugurated in 1948.
After Independence, Bangalore City was made the capital of Mysore State (renamed as Karnataka state in 1973). Since Independence, Bangalore City has witnessed a phenomenal growth in population and traffic.
The population in the Bangalore Urban Region and Municipalities has increased from 29 lakhs in 1981 to 42 lakhs in 1991 and 90 plus lakhs in 2004, an increase of 45% and 43% respectively during the mentioned period. The extent of developed area has also increased considerably, in 1971 the area was 174.7 sq.kms and today it is about 437 sq.kms.
The city evolved as the garden city of the country due to its salubrious climate. Today it has grown into radial city with 9 road corridors forming the principal radial arms, with concentric orbital corridors. The total road length of the city is about 4200 kms out of which arterial roads account for 500 kms. Most of the corridors carry traffic volumes much above their capacity, though number of grade separators have been constructed and are being constructed, most of them are located in the developed part of the city and causing a trigger of congestion at adjacent junctions.
The public transport system (bus) is overstressed carrying about 50 lakh commuters in a daily basis. Congested streets and longer route lengths due to urban sprawl have only served to reduce bus frequencies further.
Traffic Management measures such as one way systems, parking restrictions, junctions improvements etc., are being implemented to ease the congested street network. The ever increasing traffic is fast deteriorating the limited improvement in level of service these traffic management measures can offer.
Industrial activity in and around Bangalore City, particularly Information Technology and Bio Technology related activities continues to grow and attract a large number of people to the city. The rapid urban population growth with relatively small investments in transport (roads and buses) has resulted in an increasing gap between the transport demand and supply.
The number of motor vehicles registered in Bangalore increased from 2,36,000 in 1983 to 6,84,497 by 1992 and 21 lakhs by December 2004, a phenomenal rate of increase 289% and 278% respectively during the mentioned period . Out of the total 21 lakhs registered vehicles in Bangalore, 15.42 lakh vehicles account for 2 wheelers and 3.3 lakhs vehicles account for cars, which means that 88.17% of total vehicles are personal vehicles. This does not include the floating vehicle population.
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