IMPROVING RESILIENCY OF TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

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IMPROVING RESILIENCY OF TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

• Prof. Kapil Gupta
• Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
• India

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Scope

• Aim
• To provide guidelines to make transport systems
  resilient to natural and environmental hazards
• In particular, to ensure rapid restoration of
  air, road and rail services following a severe
  urban flooding event.
• To formulate an effective flood mitigation
  strategy/protocol through educational, corporate
  and government bodies at local, regional,
  national and international competencies.

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Background

• Rapid urbanization
• 217.6 million (1991) 23 metro cities
• 289 million (2001) 40 metro cities
• 605 million (2021)

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Background (2)

• 65 of 1.7 m. Mumbaites live in informal/illegal
  settlements
• Large megacities like Mumbai and Delhi
• Mumbai 25 m. by 2025
• 10 megacities by 2025
• Rapid and uncontrolled growth, increase in
  vehicles
• Diminishing investment in infrastructure
• Highly vulnerable to natural disasters

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Mumbai

• 5 m. people transported daily by suburban rail
• Rail network constitutes lifeline of city
• Disruption during monsoon affects livelihood
• Economic and social disruption

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Mumbai

• Structural Measures
• Constraints of time and money
• Implementation difficult
• Non-structural measures
• Relative advantage

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Key strategy

• Make people realize that the cost of not doing
  is manyfold as compared to the cost of doing.
• Establish mechanism for more collaboration
  amongst local, regional, international public and
  private sector groups through workshops and core
  groups
• Enhance local, regional, national and
  international competencies

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Strategy

• Use state-of-the-art technologies for forecasting
  rainfall, measuring runoff, traffic operating
  systems.
• Equipment
• Software
• On-line flood forecasting and traffic operation
  system(s).

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Simple Flood Warning System

• What is available
• From previous experience, frequently flooding
  areas known.
• From the tide tables, the timings of the high
  tide available
• From satellite imagery/RADAR measurements, the
  cloud/rain cover and therefore the chances of
  heavy rain can be anticipated.
• It has been observed that high tide preceded by
  continuous rainfall of high intensity for a
  certain duration - say 3 hours has precipitated
  in flooding problems.

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Simple Flood Warning System (2)

• What needs to be done
• 1.  Install automatic self-recording rain/flow
  gauges suitable location(s). Monitor/record at
  1-5 minute intervals.
• 2.  Connect to Control room through telemetry .
• 3. Simultaneously, monitor level in nearby trunk
  drain, particularly 3 hours before occurrence of
  high tide levels.
• 4.  Link rainfall intensity data to water level
  in local drain.
• 5. These can be easily correlated.
• 6.  Information dissemination is the key.
• 7. Issue warnings through radio/television to
  public/ utilities.

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Implementation

• Improve the transfer of information and decision
  making processes of agencies
• Create a dedicated task force within department
• Involve the scientific community
• Knowledge/solutions to be transferred in a form
  comprehensible to leaders and decision makers

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Barriers to implementation

• Present Political and Bureaucratic structure
• Lack of leadership in business community to
  pursue long-term solutions
• Lack of information on possible solutions
• Conflicting requirement with other crisis funding

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RECOMMENDATIONS

• Blueprint proposes a flood mitigation strategy
  for the transport sector for high density urban
  cities in the developing world
• Aims to reduce the damage to residents in urban
  areas in the developing world

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RECOMMENDATIONS(2)

• Most solutions technical in nature
• Need to transfer knowledge to decision executives
  
• Efficient mechanism needs to be established/
  strengthened
• Use state-of-the-art equipment
• Improve forecasting and communication mechanisms

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RECOMMENDATIONS (3)

• Establish an ongoing mechanism for interaction
  between
• The Business community,
• The Scientific community, and
• The Government

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RECOMMENDATIONS (5)

• Promote long-term sustainable measures for
  mitigation
• International organizations may play a key role
  in pressurizing the various groups to implement
  sensible measures

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RECOMMENDATIONS (6)

• Establish ongoing links between mitigation
  measures and city development plans