Addressing a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday, Superintendent Engineer (Design) H R Shantharajanna said the census will cover 3,821 count posts covering various stretches of State Highways and major district roads.
The census, held once in five years, will assess the traffic volume on different categories of roads helping the State government to take decisions on improvement, upgradation and widening of existing roads, he said. Besides, the data collected from the survey will help in identifying points of congestion on various roads, devise methods for promoting safety of travel on roads and minimise road accidents, he said. The census will be held around the clock from 6 am on February 17 to 6 am on February 24.
The State government has already announced plans to improve 10,000 km of State and district highways on BOOT basis. The Road Traffic Census-2010 will be the 11th survey taken up by the PWD in the State. The State has witnessed the total length of State Highways increase from 6005 km in 1971 to 17,240 km in 2005 (year the last survey was held).
Chart of traffic growth
Light vehicles traffic has grown 14 times on State Highways during the last three decades.
Previous traffic census by PWD (between 1970 and 2005) show that annual increase in light vehicle traffic on State Highways as whopping 42.2 pc, followed by heavy vehicles 24.21 pc per annum. Traffic on district roads is no different. There has been a leap in traffic by 21 times in the last three decades.
The Bangalore-Mysore Road is the busiest stretch in the State recording 1,26,664 passenger count units (pcu) during the road traffic census held in 2005.
Pcu is a unit to express vehicle density on roads. B’lore Nandi Rd (B’lore-Nagavara-Thanisandra Road) is the next busiest with 85,925 pcu followed by Yelahanka-Kudumalakunte Road - 55,002 pcu.