Article

Sapana Shah, SSASIT, Surat; Rinkal Sutaria ,SSASIT, Surat; Bhasker bhatt ,SCET, Surat, Gujarat, India

Central Business Districts (CBD) are certain areas of traffic attraction due to the rapid urbanization, growing population, and increasing commercial and economic activities. More population generate a large number of vehicles, leading to conflict with vehicles and congestion. It in turn adversely affects the ultimate goal of efficient mobility of the citizens. The CBD is likely to offer high accessibility with the provision of transportation infrastructures; it is also threatened by mobility challenges resulting in low productivity and loss of man-hours, thus adversely affecting the overall wellbeing of residents. This research observes the challenges of traffic congestion and management problems within Surat CBD, on a major arterial known as, ‘Rajmarg’ having a 2.4 km of length. Researchers obtained data through identification of land use (ground truthing), cross-section road inventory, and observing major traffic activity. For addressing the traffic congestion, classified volume count survey and pedestrian count of 3 days i.e. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (videography), speed and delay survey (using android based mobile application “My Tracks”). Findings exposed an irregular land use pattern, resulting in traffic and transportation bottleneck, vehicular conflicts and unnecessary traffic congestion, longer travel time and loss of human hours during a day-time. The paper deliberates the need for a review of CBD -Surat by the execution of the planning and regulatory rules for effective traffic management.