After the success of interventions made to decongest Suraj Pole junction in Udaipur, ICLEI South Asia has implemented another junction design improvement at Delhi Gate, in the same city. The activity that was taken up as an experiment under Handholding support to cities in Urban Mobility and Built Environment, supported by Shakti Energy foundation. The junction design improvement was done in support with Udaipur Municipal Corporation (UMC), collector and traffic police.

The support for the activities being carried out by The ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability South Asia, along with partners Sandeep Gandhi Architects (SGA), includes improvement of junctions, parking management plan and other interventions on built environment.

The Delhi Gate junction is a six-arm junction in the heart of the city and required assistance on traffic management as it needed around 8-10 traffic police constables to regulate the traffic. The activity on junction design improvement was taken up as a pilot experiment on August 31 and remained operational for next two days for receiving public views.

ICLEI South Asia and SGA were on site to assist the Municipal Corporation and Traffic Police with temporary installation at the junction, as per design that included a set of two roundabouts at different arms and then defining of street edges with spaces designated for all users such as pedestrians, cyclists and street vendors. The temporary installation was done with the help of barricades. The traffic police were instructed to guide the traffic as per the installation. The major improvement included short roundabout designs and defining the movement of traffic which regulated the traffic and reduced the speed. The design made it optional for traffic lights to be functional to ensure smooth movement of traffic. The intervention also reduced the friction between the vehicles and pedestrians. The design improvements will further need to be changed based on the pilot results.

The local media and the corporation made a great effort to inform public about the pilot effort and shared their views on the same. After the successful pilot implementation, the UMC has requested the project team for a brief status report, including further inputs on other similar areas in the city as well.

For a ‘smart’ Udaipur

Before this, in June 2016, ICLEI South Asia had made a similar design improvement for Suraj pole junction in the city. The junction that once needed seven to eight traffic police constables to regulate the traffic is now smoothly functioning even with less manpower.

ICLEI South Asia is also involved in assisting the UMC to resolve access to the core city area: Area Based Development (ABD) and also suggest strategies to manage parking in the area. Access to the core city area is being resolved through suggesting design improvements to junctions located at eight major poles (traditional gates) in Udaipur. The junction improvement process includes mapping of the junctions with activity mapping, traffic counts, local parking augmentation for all modes, public space development and total station surveys.

For providing handholding support to four cities under this project, ICLEI South Asia has been involved in preparing the technical advisory to build cities’ capacity to develop smart built environment action plans to focus on influencing smart urban mobility and smart built environment approach which can feed into ongoing efforts of smart city programme.