The suggestions in this discussion do not require a lot of investment.
Roads
1) Slow moving traffic even when the road is wider.
2) Finding a proper parking facility.
3) About road side parking, we need a dynamic parking control mechanism. On busy roads and busy hours vehicles should be able to use all lanes on the road. If vehicles are allowed to park on road side then it will slow down the traffic. Bus bay should be planned properly.
4.) We need an automatic control on signals and parking signs. For example even on busy roads we can allow parking when there is less traffic. Similarly when the traffic increases the fine for parking should also increase. For example a road may attract zero fine from night 11pm to 4am. Then from 4am to 6am there could a parking fee, The parking fee should then increase every 30 minutes until it reaches its peak on 10am. similarly the busiest roads should attract a maximum penalty for parking while a road which is not that busy should attract only lesser fine or no fine.
5.) We should have a central control on all traffic signals in the city. When a road is blocked we have to display the message to incoming traffic as early as possible so that they can plan a deviation early. similarly when the traffic has to use the side roads the parking fees on these roads should go up to discourage people from parking on the roads.
6.)We can have a gps based penalty calculation app for the users. This app can also be used to give location of paid parking centers. App also can be used to book the parking lot
Transportation
There are two areas that needs improvement 1.) Auto rickshaws 2). City buses and shuttle services
Auto rickshaws
Plan a Uber like service for Auto Rickshaws. Right now they slow down at junctions to see that if anybody is interested in hiring them. This slows down the traffic considerably. If we introduce a Uber like service then people can book autos from anywhere. We can also introduce a people friendly metering like Uber.
City services and shuttle services in the city
This needs a total overhaul.
Assume that I am waiting for a city bus in Thirumala to go to peyad. The bus starts from East fort at 4pm and is suppose to arrive at Thirumala at 4:30 pm. Also assume that there are buses from east fort to peyad every 15 minutes from 4pm. The first bus arrives at Palayam by 4:10pm but there is traffic jam. The bus get stuck at Palayam for 30 minutes, the next bus also got stuck. Meanwhile the crowd waiting in each bus stop between playam and Thirumala will increase several folds. This is happening everyday in our city and commuters waiting in Thirumala has no way to know about the arrival of the next bus.
There are two things that needs to be done.
1.) An app in the mobile phone should say the expected time of arrival of next bus. This should be dynamic app that reads the gps location of the bus and the expected traffic delay. Commuters will know how much more time to wait.
2.) Stop the practice of starting all buses from East fort or Thampanoor. Divide the city into zones. For example zones like Poojapura, Sasthamangalam, Pattom, kannamoola, etc. Thamaponnor, East fort , Palayam etc can be the central zone. Define bus termination points for each zone. For example let pattom zone bus come only upto Vikasbhavan depot. Poojapura zone bus should take a round trip at Bakery , etc. The central zone should run clockwise and anti clockwise buses touching each of the termination points of other zones in the city. Let the people that wants to go peyad get down at Bakery junction and board another bus from bakery to peyad. A person traveling from east fort to Peyad should be issued one ticket from starting point to end point.
