Impact of Metro Rail on Para Transport System of Urban Commutation- A Study on Hyderabad

Abstract

Rapid transport system has become the core priority of urban administration and made the policy makers to undertake rapid transport modes like Metrorail to ease the process of urban commutation and to save the productive working hours of millions of commuters travelling either side of their cities. The major problem with respect to rapid transport system in India lies in the policy framework itself which advocates that, only cities having one million and above population is eligible to have rapid transport mechanism like metro rail. It is the reason why only nine cities of the country are presently equipped with metro rail system of which Hyderabad occupies an important space not only due to demographic divergence,  but also due to the public private partnership (ppp) mode of building and operating 72 km of metro rail in important corridors impacting the existing transport modes like state transport corporation buses and Para transit vehicles like Autos or simply auto rickshaws which are widely  effected with the commencement of metro operations, because there are 1.6 lakh registered auto rickshaws providing livelihood to equal number of families transporting 15 lakh commuters a day therefore it is felt important to study the impact of metro rail on Para transport system with the core objectives of understanding the nitty-gritty of metro rail operations in Hyderabad and accessing the perceptions of Para transport stakeholders on metro operations.