INTRODUCTION

Ahmedabad, founded in 1411 AD as a walled city on the eastern bank of the river Sabarmati, is seventh largest metropolis in India and largest in the state (Census, 2011). It is very well connected through air, road and rail links with major metropolis of India such as Mumbai and Delhi and other international destinations.
LOCATION AND REGIONAL SETTING
Ahmedabad, a commercial capital of Gujarat, is one of the key emerging urban centers of India. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) covers an area of 466 square kilometres (2012) with a population of 5.5 million (as per provisional Census, 2011).
Ahmedabad is located at 23.03°N 72.58°E in western India at an elevation of 53 metres (174 ft) from sea level on the banks of the Sabarmati river, in north-central Gujarat. With semi arid climate, Ahmedabad’s temperature varies from 15.40 c to 43.10 c. Annual rainfall of Ahmedabad is 782mm and humidity is 80%.
Ahmedabad has a strong industrial base of traditional manufacturing, especially textiles, chemicals, plastics, machinery and basic metals and alloys. Ahmedabad, located on the proposed Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) continues to be attractive destination for investments. In the region, several Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Special Investment Regions (SIRs) are proposed. Given these trends, the city is expected to experience rapid growth in population and consequently in travel demand. Anticipating the likely growth in travel demand,rate of motorization and its likely impact on functioning of the city, its environment, the city and state governments have made several initiatives to build state of the art infrastructure that is aimed at city’s improving economic development prospectus and to ensure high standards of quality of life. Recent opinion poll conducted for Times of India by leading market research firm IMRB across the country's eight biggest urban agglomerations, rates Ahmedabad as the best of India's mega-cities to live in, edging out Pune, Mumbai and Delhi in a very close contest.
DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE
The population in the AMC limits increased to 5.56 million in 2011 from 4.5 million in 2001 (AMC, 2012) growth rate of 2.37 %. The population density for AMC area is 118 persons per hectare. However, if we consider only the developed area, the density figure shoots upto 215 persons / hectare.
2-1. Demographic Profile

Ahmedabad Fact Sheet

Jurisdiction Boundaries

AMC, AUDA

AMC Area

466 Sq.km.

Population (AMC – 2011)

55,70,585**

Decadal growth rate

2.05%

Population density (AMC-2011)

120 pph

AUDA Area

1866 Sq.km. 

(AUDA area has 

11 urban areas including AMC + 

3 out growths + 159 villages)

AUDA Area

65,26,017*

Population Density (AUDA)

35 pph

*CEPT Estimates 

** Provisional Census, 2011

Ahmedabad has history of being important traditional centre of trade, continued to be key economical area of the state. In the 70’s, the dominant textile industry in Ahmedabad had more or less stagnated with no growth in employment. The conditioned worsened during eighties with the closure of several large scale textile mills. During nineties, the city found chemical industry as an alternate key industrial base, lead to establishment of industrial estates in Eastern part of Ahmedabad i.e. Naroda, Odhav and Vatva. Today, several key high-growth industries such as textiles, pharmaceuticals and natural gas are established in Ahmedabad. The two of the biggest pharmaceutical companies of India -- Zydus Cadila and Torrent Pharmaceuticals are based here. Also the industrial centres around Ahmedabad, its traditional strength, have witnessed a turnaround, to Ahmedabad’s advantage. The city also is the corporate headquarter of the Nirma Group of Industries and the Adani Group. Ahmedabad, as listed by Forbes2, is one of ‘the next decade's fastest-growing cities of the world. The city is emerging as a major automobile industry hub with investments from companies like Tata, Ford, Peugeot and Maruti in areas around Ahmedabad.
The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) is being developed and the Dedicated Freight Corridor passes through the city region, which will in future increase the economic opportunities of the city.

Urban transport scenario

Ahmedabad city is well connected to the major urban centres in the state and the country through an expressway, several national and state highways, the broad-gauge (BG) and meter-gauge (MG) railways and an international airport. The city transportation system is predominantly dependent on roadway systems. The Indian Railways and Gujarat State Road Transport Service provide inter-city rail and bus services respectively.
VEHICULAR GROWTH
Growth in population and area over decades, is accompanied with even more rapid rise in vehicular population. There were only 45000 vehicles registered in the city of Ahmedabad in 1971. This has gone up to 25 lakh in the year 2010, recording a rise by 52 folds in five decades. In terms of composition, 93% are passenger vehicles. About 73% of the vehicles are two wheelers and cars constitute about 14%.
With about 2,50,000 registered cars in 2010, the car ownership rates in Ahmedabad looks low (44 cars/1000 people) (CEPT-COE Study, 2011). Since the registration numbers include total number of vehicles registered with RTO over the years, it is estimated that under operation vehicles would be around 65% of the total. Based on this car ownership in 2010 is around 30 cars per 1000 population. Adding two wheelers to it, the personalised vehicle ownership rate works out to 230 per 1000 people. Today, Ahmedabad has 24,00,000 total registerred vehicles, out of which 2,63,205 are registered cars (RTO, 2012).
ROAD NETWORK
Ahmedabad has grown in form of circular rings around the walled city area which is traditional central business district. The street network evolved historically as ring-radial form, comprising of 5 rings and 19 well defined radials; 11 in the west and 8 in the east. Ashram road, running along the river Sabarmati on the western side, acts as north south arbital. Total road network length within AMC area is 2399 Km (AMC diary, 2011).
As stated earlier, the share of area under the roads constitutes 7.5% of the entire city area. Within the developed area, the area under roads is about 18%. This translates to an average road width of 12m and about 10 kms per sq.km of developed area.
A ring around the city was carved out of the fort wall, which forms inner-ring of the city. The second and the third rings and several radials were developed based on the proposals of 1965 Development Plan. The width of each of these rings is 80 feet, 100 feet and 132 feet.
The third ring on the west was completed as recently as 2000. Due to location of Cantonment and Airport in the north, the ring could not be completed as planned. The fourth ring is defined using the two National Highways, one in the east and the other in the west. The fifth ring was developed as part of fourth plan (approved by the government in 2002). The river Sabarmati divides the city in to two parts. There are eleven bridges which facilitate movement across the city. About 106 km long BG line and 126 km long MG line pass through the city, which act as a barrier at various locations within the city. In order to ease movements across railway lines, several rail-over bridges have been built.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Transit services in Ahmedabad are provided by Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Services (AMTS) and the Ahmedabad Janmarg Limited (AJL), and for regional public transit demand is catered by Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC). GSRTC is providing regional public transport services; this public transport service brings commuters from surrounding towns and villages such as Dehgam, Mansa, Khedbrahma and Gandhinagar.
AMTS is providing public transport since 1947, with 200 routes covering 733 kms of road network, AMTS covers about 88% of the developed AMC area and carry 0.9 million passengers per day. It caters to roughly 11% of the trips in the city. These buses perform roughly 7954 trips on daily basis (AMTS, 2012).
Janmarg BRTS services commenced operations as a closed system in Oct 2009. The network connects central city with traffic generators such as transit terminals, markets, industries and institutions designed to serve the people of Ahmedabad. The BRT system currently with a network length of 59 kms attracts 1.17 lakh passengers daily. There are 9 operational routes and the peak headways are around 2.5 minutes. Due to the dedicated corridors and priority given at major intersections, the peak hour speeds of BRT buses are 25kmph and comparable to mixed traffic speeds.
INTERMEDIATE PUBLIC TRANSPORT MODES
There are about 60000 CNG auto rickshaws operating in the city. About 6000-8000 of them operate as shared auto rickshaws known as “Chakdas”. As they ply along the BRTS and AMTS routes at comparative fares, they provide stiff competition to the bus services.
TRAVEL CHARACTERISTICS
The per capita trip rate including walk, as per AMTS/CEPT (1992) was 1.2, GIDB IPTS (2000) was 1.1 trips per day, GIDB Metro study by DMRC (2003) was 1.16. The same excluding walk was 0.72. Per capita motorized trip rate was 0.52. However, recent study by COE-UT,CEPT show trip rate to be high at 1.44 (all trips). Excluding all the walk trips below or equal to 500 meters, the trip rate of AMC is about 1.39. About 70% of the walk trips were less than a 0.5 km distance.
The average trip length for all modes is 5.02 km. Work trips forms 33% of the total trips followed by education trips at 30%. Shopping/recreation trips are occupying 20% of the total trips, whereas purposes such as business or other hold 7% and 9% respectively.
Western part of the city is dominated by car trips, where as walk and cycle trips are mainly concentrates on eastern part of the city and near to industrial centres. Two wheeler and trips through auto rickshaw are distributed all over the city.

Study Area

STUDY AREA
The MoUD document for benchmarking urban transport services suggests that the study area will be confined to Local Planning Area (LPA), in case of Ahmedabad, AUDA is about 1866 sq.km., comprising of 11 urban areas, 3 outgrowths and 159 villages, considering such huge area for benchmarking will not be feasible option (For details refer map 7.1-1). As shown in the map, Ahmedabad Urban Agglomeration (defined by provisional census, 2011) is also very large and does not restrict to Ahmedabad, instead it also covers other cities like Gandhinagar and Sanand.
Map 1-1Demographics for delineated region

Since the service level benchmarks measure performance of the urban area, delineation 

could be considered as municipal area limits plus the city sprawl (contiguous built-up 

adjoining the municipal limits).

Boundary

Total Area (Sq.Km)

Built up Area (Sq.Km)

Population

AMC

466

255

5,570,585*

Delineated Area

559

275

5,688,093**

*Provisional Census, 2011

**CEPT-COE Estimates, 2011

Considering the contiguous development around AMC boundary, the villages have been

added in study area are: Bopal, Ghuma (OG), Sanathal, Navapura, Changodar, Moraiya,

Asali, Jetalpur, Kathwada (OG), Singerva (CT), Chiloda (CT) and Rakanpur. This study

area is considered while measuring benchmarks.

SELECTION OF ROAD NETWORK FOR ROAD NETWORK FOR INVENTORY
Table 2-1.Road Classification & Lengths

Road Levels

Length(km)

%share

Level 1

“ARTERIAL” –

Formulates the

pattern or form of

the city”

In case of Ahmedabad, Level 1 road

are the roads which takes care of primary

traffic movement in and out of the city,

4 rings (SP ring road, 132’ ring road,

University road ring, walled city and

CG road ring

2 Orbital roads running North - South

on the west and east side of the city

namely SG highway and

Narol-Naroda highway,

14 Urban radials which consist of

sections of the 14 Regional Radials

as it enters the urban developable

boundary and connects to the city

core,

5 other Radial roads within the city

which does not continue as Regional

radials, but has a strong radial

alignment within the developable

boundary and acts as an efficient

urban arterial, functionally.

417

16

Level 2 “SUBARTERIAL” -

Formulates

patterns by further

dissecting level 1

roads / Forms

- patterns

All radials and rings that are 50%

complete

Radials which are having length less

than half of the city (in case of

Ahmedabad, radials not originating

from walled city connecting straight

to SP ring road

Long roads (roads having lengths of

approximately half or three quarter

length to the city size)

Major district roads & Other district

roads Roads, which are further

dissecting level 1 roads and form

grids or pattern

OR

Roads that have right of way

Category I cities: >24m - 36m

Category II cities: >15m-18m

335

13

Level 3 “Collector”

– creates blocks

Roads that connect level 1 and level 2

roads 

Roads, that further create smaller

grids

OR

Roads that have right of way

Category I & II cities: > 9m

485

19

Level 4 “Local

roads” – Access to

the residents

Roads that connects to residential

units. 

Roads that have right of way < 9m

1374

52

Total

2612

100

The total length of road network within study area is 2612 km,
The total length of road network within AMC is 2112 km of surfaced roads, and 287 km of un-surfaced roads, total road network length is 2399 km. For road network inventory, as explained in earlier chapters, the selection of roads will be restricted to 3rd level of roads only, 4th level roads will not be considered, only if they are part of the any bus routes. 2nd step in the selection of the roads for road network inventory was to identify the links with bus routes and merge it with classification of the levels. Based on the public transport network and road classification map3.2-5 indicates the network selected for the survey. Total length of the network selected for the survey is 736km; they refer as major roads in the study for all the indicator computation.
Map 2-1.Road network classification - Level 1
Map 2-2.Road network classification - Level2
Map 2-3.Road network classification - Level 3
Map 2-4.Road network classification - Level 4
Map 2-5. Selected network for Road inventory survey
SELECTION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT ROUTES
Map 3-1.Selected AMTS routes with Headway categories
Map 3-2.Selected Public Transport (AMTS + BRTS) Network
Table 3-1.AMTS - Selection

Routes with headways (minutes) categories

Routes selected for the primary surveys

<=5

0

0

>5=10

2

2

>10=20

11

4

>20=30

40

17

>30=60

84

14

>60

34

-

Total routes

171

37

As mentioned in the earlier chapter (refer 2.5.1), the criterion behind the selection of particular route was headway. AMTS offers 171 routes; out of which, there are 137 routes are having headways <=60 minutes. There are 37 routes selected for the primary surveys, all the 5 operational routes are considered for the primary surveys, as all the routes are having headways less than 5 minutes.