How do you know that you are with Britishers?
Simple ! They always discuss weather !
How do you know that you are with Bangaloreans ?
Quite simple again ! They almost always discuss traffic !!
Most of you will agree with this. In last 5 years, traffic in Bangalore has worsened at such an extent that driving itself has become a challenge. Leave about issues in office, we get so much worked up even before reaching the office. Though Bangalore is just an example, this traffic problem is more or less found in all major cities.
Apart from obvious causes like more vehicles on road, less traffic discipline and more, one of the main causes is damaged roads themselves. How many times we see traffic congestion because of a pit hole in the sideways of a road or broken road in the middle. Many a times these hurdles are more difficult to pass than mindless speed-breakers. And Maha-nagar palika is doing the work at its own pace. When we register any complain there, their answer is same: “Ours is a big city. We can’t manage everything in a day. It will take time. Many a times, they even don’t know that there is some problem on such and such roads. So How can we help them in this ?
Well, I have got this idea. The department which handles the repair work of damaged roads should do the work in public partnership. Public’s work – To inform them about location and extent of damage of a road. Department’s work – To verify the requests and repair such roads in priority order.
There can be a simple form on their website with following information:
- Road name
- Complete Address
- Nearby reference
- Damage grade (High, Medium and Less)
- Road image
- Approx Google maps coordinates : There can be one inbuilt Google maps application in which user can pin-point approximate location. This can help the department to locate the damaged part more easily.
I am sure if they start such project, they will get hundreds of requests per day. However, they can prioritize the work and complete it accordingly. What this system does is, it logs the data of damaged roads of even the remotest area into their database. That itself is a first step of getting them repaired. A more sophisticated system should also show the current status of each request and notify the user when the repair work for his/her request is completed.
This is just the part of solving the big puzzle – that is traffic. Let us examine possible remedies in subsequent posts.
