The yearlong Kochi Public Transport Day (KPTD) campaign by CPPR continues to create awareness among the public and promote the use of public transport. The campaign has come a long way spreading the message of appreciating the public transport staff and deliberating on various ways to provide safe public transport for women during the initial months. The transport minister of the state, the district collector, the mayor, MLA are some of the leaders who took public transport ride as part of the campaign to analyse the various issues pertaining to public transportation in the city. CPPR aims to raise public transportation issues in the city before the authorities and initiate discussion on the same including the authorities, concerned stakeholders and the public. The overarching ambition is to make Kochi a liveable city, whose backbone is an effective, efficient and affordable public transport system.
The eighth edition of KPTD was held on October 20th, 2018. YS Mens’ Club, South Chittor hosted the event.The MLA of Ernakulam constituency, Mr. Hibi Eden and Kerala Transport Commissioner, K Padmakumar IPS were the chief guests of the day. The transport commissioner and the RTO of Ernakulam, Jojy P. Jose travelled by a private bus from Kacheripady Junction to Cheranallur as part of the campaign to promote public transport.
At Cheranallur, the guests met with local panchayat members and residents at the Cheranallur Panchayat Hall.The programme was inaugurated by Mr Hibi Eden, MLA. In his inaugural speech, he discussed the problems faced by the local residents. . North Ernakulam lacks in infrastructure development except for the Pachalam bridge constructed by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) recently.Chittoor residents travelling to Kalmassery need to take a detour via Kacheripady resulting in loss of time and money. This is despite the numerous internal road connections to the Container Terminal Road to Kalmassery. Direct bus routes between Chittor and Kalmassery metro station via Container Terminal Road and introduction of water metro would help commuters.
Ms Sony Cheekku, President, Cheranallur Panchayat attended the programme in her official capacity. Members of YS Mens’ Club were also present and participated in the discussions. Advocate Ebenezer, representative of YS Men’s Club presented the proposal for new bus routes to improve connectivity from Chittor to Kalmassery. The Kochi metro is also operating in the same direction (North to South) in which majority of the city buses run due to which some of the people who used to travel by bus started using metro for their commutation. This is not a win win situation for both the parties. He said that at present metro and majority of the buses run in North South direction, resulting in private buses competing with metro.
He reinstated the need for introducing new bus routes in East west direction which can be a win win situation for all including bus owners, metro and the people. He recommended the use of technology for timely updates on buses and traffic conditions to encourage people to use public transport.
K Padmakumar, in his speech, assured that request to the Regional Transport Authority from private bus operators for new bus routes between Chittoor and Kalamassery metro will be given due consideration. Public transport constitutes only 18% of the total vehicles in the state. Two wheelers are the most favoured mode of transport. Unlike London, where a congestion tax can be levied on use of private vehicles during peak hours, such measures are futile without a robust public transport system.
D Dhanuraj, Chairman, Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) gave the vote of thanks and urged public to support and participate in KPTD events to promote public transport in Kochi.