Bengaluru IT corridor gridlock: What led to traffic snarl on Outer Ring Road on September 27

However, multiple reasons contributed to the massive traffic congestion which has left many Bengalureans red-faced. According to the heatmap released by the traffic police department, the Outer Ring Road stretch Wednesday witnessed the maximum outflow of vehicles in a given time, with nearly 3.5 lakh vehicles using the stretch in real-time.

The traffic on Wednesday was two times more than on the normal day. Usually, the vehicle count on Wednesdays is 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh. What also adds to the misery is the narrow main roads, which is a result of the ongoing Metro construction work on ORR.

The maximum inflow and outflow of vehicles is because of lakhs of employees who turned up to work, a day after Tuesday’s Bengaluru bandh.

Kudeep Kumar Jain, DCP of Traffic East division explained that the attendance of IT employees to their workplace was over 90 per cent.

The peak hour traffic which usually subsides by 11 am was extended till 1.30 pm. “Soon after we realised that the attendance of IT professionals hit more than 90 per cent, we anticipated that we were in for a major traffic bottleneck in the evening. While we expected the traffic congestion to start at 5 pm, it started an hour early at 4 pm. Before we could issue an advisory to companies to delay their exit from the workplace, many vehicles had already hit the road. This is what led to the traffic congestion,” said Kumar.

He also said that the traffic police department is mulling to introduce a ‘traffic prediction algorithm’ to encourage staggered use of vehicles by IT professionals on the ORR stretch.

“The companies should ideally have a self-discipline mechanism based on which they control the vehicular usage of employees. When they knew that people turned up to work in huge numbers, they should have planned their commuting options based on the infrastructure system of the region. If they still want to go ahead and use private vehicles, knowing the infrastructure problem, they should invariably wait for long time in traffic,” added Kumar.

Mismatch between land use and transport planning, say experts

Mobility experts opine that the mismatch between land use and transport planning also leads to such traffic congestion and unmindful use of vehicles. In fact, the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) had also issued an advisory in 2021 to the IT professionals working along the ORR stretch to ‘work from home’ until the Metro work in the given stretch is completed.

However, experts believe that the tech companies have hardly enforced the advisory.

Sathya Arikutharam, an urban mobility expert said, “The capacity of ORR stretch has reduced by 40 per cent because of Metro works. By not complying with the advisory issued by DULT, you are only doubling the use of vehicles on the ORR stretch. Moreover, Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) should also be squarely blamed for delaying the master plan for Bengaluru”. Moreover, he blamed the authority for its failure to crack down on land use violations under their watch which is resulting in over occupancy than what is permitted.

Ashwin Mahesh, an urbanist, stated that “If you thought yesterday’s traffic show on ORR was the worst ever, there will soon be even worse jams. Metro won’t make much difference either”.

He said without tackling the political economy of construction, and without more roads, east BLR is past the point of no traffic return. “Daily, the number of residents is growing. That means the daily number of private vehicles is also growing. That means the traffic on already choked roads is also growing. The three things that are not growing – planned and adequate housing, public buses, and a network of roads,” Mahesh remarked.

An official attached to the KR Puram traffic police said “Because of the five-day-long weekend, we witnessed heavy traffic outflow from Bengaluru where lakhs of commuters used the ORR stretch to exit the city. The worst affected junctions were Battarahalli, KR Puram market, Muthu Mariamma Temple (MMT) and surrounding areas. At Battarahalli junction, vehicles converge from 3-lane traffic to 2-lane, which leads to congestion. Meanwhile, at KR Puram market and MMT junctions, a lot of inter-city buses and city buses ferry passengers. Yesterday, a lot of people were exiting Bengaluru towards Hoskote which led to the traffic pile up.”

On Wednesday, many bus stands also witnessed unusually high footfall which resulted in BMTC buses running with packed crowd.

Meanwhile, many people travelling to KR Puram or Whitefield railway stations missed their trains because of traffic congestion.