INTRODUCTION

City profile- Surat

 The city of Surat has a glorious history dating back to 300 B.C and owes its name to the old Hindu Town ‘Suryapur’. During the 15th century, the city of Surat emerged as an important port town and a trade centre. The city was at the height of prosperity till the rise of Bombay port in the 19th century. While there was a down slide in Surat’s economy since 1901, the foundations for the growth in the city was laid in the 60’s with the expansion of diamond trade, the gradual shift in the economic base into zari and textiles (power looms), and the intensification of oil and gas exploration activities. Today, apart from the traditional industries of textile manufacturing, trade, diamond cutting and polishing industries, intricate zari works, the base has expanded to gas based industries at Hazira.

  Location and regional setting

Surat is situated in south Gujarat, 250 Km north of Bombay, on the banks of river Tapi. The city is well connected regionally with the important cities of the western part of india through NH-8 and NH-6.

The city is a pivotal centre on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai regional corridor as well as on the 225 km long industrial belt, having direct linkages with the industrial urban centres of Vadodara, Ankleshwar and Vapi.

Surat also has a domestic airport connecting the city to other cities. Daily flights to Delhi,Jaipur and Ahmedabad are provided from Surat. The summers are quite hot with temperatures ranging from 37.C to 44.C. The climate is pleasant during the monsoon while autumn is temperate. The average annual rainfall of the city is 1143 mm.

 Demographic Profile

Surat is India's eighth (2011) and Gujarat’s second most populous city (2011). It became a metropolis in 1991, along with eleven other major cities across the country.The city has been experiencing rapid growth in population during past four decades. (as given in table below)The decadal growth rates have been one of the highest in the country and the highest in the state of Gujarat.

It also still has the lowest sex ratio (778) as compared to Ahmedabad (903), Rajkot (924) and Vadodara (934) (Census,2011) directing towards tremendous increase in the male migration in the city in last decade giving the city of Surat a predominant migrant city status.

                                                 Table 5.2-1:Demographic Profile

 

Economy

Surat is known for its textile manufacturing, trade, diamond cutting and polishing industries,intricate zari works, chemical industries and the gas based industries at Hazira established by leading industry houses such as ONGC, Reliance, ESSAR,and Shell. Much of the industrial development is located within the limits of Surat city. In fact Surat is truly an industrial city with over 50% of work force engaged in manufacturing activity. While the problem of unemployment is almost non-existent, the wages are also lower and the workers are generally deprived of social and other benefits. Out of the total 3,12,782 small scale units registered (up to Sept 2006) in the state,Surat had the highest GDP growth rates in India at 11.5 percent as of 2008. The major employment zones in the study area are primarily located in the industrial belts of Pandesara, Udhna, Sachin, Bhestan, Varachha, Kapodara,Fulpada and Katargam.

 Physical growth pattern

The city was originally established on the southern bank of the River Tapi with a castle on the eastern bank of the river. The activities were concentrated within the inner wall, construction of which was started in the year 1664. The physical expansion of the town was radial and rapid along five major corridors on the north, south, east, west and south-west till the end of 1980 s. Since the 1990 s the city has been growing rapidly on the eastern, southern and south-western sides where large area was brought under residential use by SUDA.

       Map 5-1 spatial expansion

Urban transport scenario

Existing Urban transportation scenario

The city is well connected by road, rail and air transport. Several National and State Highways passes through the city. It is also connected through sea port. As a result traffic coming to as well as passing through the city is very high. The city transportation system is predominantly road based.

Vehicular growth

The vehicles registered in Surat (RTO) area has raised from four lakh in 1994 to thirty six lakh in 2011-2012. Two wheelers comprise nearly 40% of the total number of vehicles while cars constitute about 17%.

Presently there area bout fourteen lakh two wheelers and 84099 Auto Rickshaws registered with Surat RTO. The breakup of the vehicular composition in the city and the percentage change in the city is shown in table below:-

                                                             Table 6.1-1 Vehicle growth rate ( RTO , Surat)

 

 Road network

The roadway network of Surat within SMC is around 1914 Km. Other than the National Highway Authority the State Roads and Buildings Department and the two urban local bodies; SMC and SUDA are responsible for developing and maintaining road infrastructure.

The street network in Surat may be classified as ring-radial form at city level and grid Iron pattern is observed at the local level network. The rings and the radials are however incomplete.

Map 6-1 Road network (SMC)

 Public transport systems

Till 2004, the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) operated urban transport services in the city of Surat. This was provided through three depots of which Lambe Hanuman and Udhana Gam depots were used for within-intra city services and Adajan Patiyadepot for inter-city services. Over the years, the route served by city buses has increased, but fleet availability has reduced drastically and since May 2007, all urban services have been withdrawn.

A new system under the overall supervision of SMC with private participation has been operational since August 2007. As of today a total of 126 buses operate on identified 43 routes carrying about 66881 passengers per day. These buses perform 741 trips per day.

It not serves only the municipal limit but also provide services within 10 km limit outside Surat Municipal Corporation Limit. The outside areas area served are;

 

  •  Railway Station to Kamrej Char Rasta
  •  Railway Station to Kadodara Char Rasta 
  •  Railway Station to Reliance Gate, Mora 
  • Railway Station to Olpad

 Map 6-2 Public transport network - Surat

Intermediate public transport modes

Absence of bus services which have only recently started (2007) has led to emergence of auto sand smaller vehicle based IPT service. They operate as point to point services.Based on the services it has been observed that there are 123 informal established routes.An estimated 7.7 lakh passenger trips are performed by auto rickshaws

Travel characteristics

Triprate for all modes in the city is 1.02 (2005, CES) while motorized trip rate is0.73 (2005, CES). Average trip length is about 3.5km but for 2. wheeler, autorickshaw and bicycle users the trip length ranges between 4.5 to 5.5 km. Mode share in the city as per the study conducted in 2005 is highest walk at 35.28%and 2 wheeler at 29.3%

                                  As per the trip purpose work trips and education trips are the

                                                                   highest at 57%  and 29%.

Study Area

Benchmarking of city in urban transport

Study area delineation

As discussed earlier in chapter 2,the study area considered for the city includes the municipal limit and other surrounding areas that are contiguous to the city (i.e. contiguous built-up area or in other words part of city sprawl). As seen clearly in map below, In the north direction of the city, there is not much of sprawl or growth of area.Those areas that are seen contiguous to SMC limit are in the south-east part of the city which.

Study Area

Selection of road network for road network inventory

The road selected for conducting the road inventory survey has been considered on the basis of road network classification as mentioned in the earlier chapter. The road network has been classified into four levels and the summary of the share is presented below;

                                                       Table 7.2-1: Road Network Classification

 

Map 7-2 Road network inventory.JPG

Map 7-3 Road network classification - level 1.JPG

Map 7-4 Road network classification level 2

Map 7-5 Road network Classification Level 1, 2, 3 & 4

Map 7-6 Road network Classification Level 1, 2, 3 & 4

 Selection of public transport routes

As mentioned in the earlier chapter, the selections of routes were based on head ways and the selection criteria given. The total number of routes with headways classified into categories is shown below in the table. No service in the city has headways

 

                                                  Table 7.3-1: Public Transport Route Selection

From the above table there are 23 routes whose head ways are between 20-60 minutes.Considering 25% of the routes as explained in the methodology chapter, 6 routes(156, 134, 133,119,125 and 142.) were selected for conducting the boarding and alighting survey.