Management of Transportation System and Prioritization of Transport Infrastructure Projects

The increasing demand for transport services in Indian cities has been observed due to increases in population, increases in household income, and increases in economic activities. Traffic congestion problem is a serious hindrance to economic growth as transport is a basic economic infrastructure for any economy. In most of the Indian cities, congestion and delays are ever increasing and the supply of road space is becoming highly insufficient. Countries try to solve congestion problem by constructing new roads, widening of existing roads or construction of flyovers or underpasses. Such infrastructure development programs take place either to create alternate roads for particular destination or to segregate through-traffic from cross- traffic at various road intersections. In the large metropolitan cities of India, journeys along the roads are characterized by low travel speed, delays at the road intersections and infrastructural inadequacies in the road network. It is essential to judge the priority of development of transport infrastructure at different alternate locations using scarce economic resources before such construction takes place. Present study intends to discuss about the existing techniques used by the planners to evaluate investment projects and considers the applicability of Multi Criteria Analysis technique as a tool for that in the form of a case study