The Nilgiris district police monitored the number of vehicles entering and exiting the district, especially the major tourist towns of Udhagamandalam and Coonoor, during the peak tourist season in May this year to study the possibilities of traffic jams.
The police were monitoring inflow of vehicles at the Kakkanallah checkpost separating the Nilgiris from Karnataka as well as Burliar and Kunjapannai bordering Coimbatore district. “The traffic along the three border checkposts was monitored, with the number of vehicles entering and exiting the district being counted and recorded every three hours,” said Ashish Rawat, district superintendent of police (Nilgiris).
“For instance, if there were 3,000 vehicles entering the Nilgiris during the three hours, while only 1,000 were exiting, we could reasonably predict that either Coonoor or Udhagamandalam will have heavy traffic within the town,” said Mr. Rawat, who added that the exercise helped to predict peak traffic flows, which in turn meant that the police could plan ahead of time to minimise gridlocks.
Apart from the three border checkposts, traffic was also monitored in Coonoor, Doddabetta and Thalakundah, to help with collecting more reliable data about the number of vehicles entering Udhagamandalam and Coonoor.
During the peak weekends, like during the flower show, an average of more than 3,000 additional vehicles had entered Udhagamandalam town, police officials added. The increase in the number of vehicles, combined with a lack of parking space in Udhagamandalam and Coonoor, was the primary reason why the two towns in the Nilgiris face serious traffic-related issues each year, said G. Janardhanan, president of Ooty Public Awareness Association.
Mr. Janardhanan added that a multi-level parking facility, which had been planned for many years was yet to even get past the planning phase, with a suitable location yet to be chosen for the facility. “The location for such a facility needs to be identified correctly, as a parking facility outside the town will not be of much use as people would be reluctant to walk long distances from the parking facility to tourist locations. An ideal situation would be to modernise the existing Udhagamandalam Municipal Market, and construct parking areas on street-level, while the shops could be moved up one storey,” said Mr. Janardhanan.
Police officials said that parking of vehicles by home and business owners outside their shops and residences where there were no garage facility were also a contributing factor for lack of parking space in Udhagamandalam and Coonoor, while also hindering the free movement of traffic.
