Are good old roundabouts the way forward?

The next time you manoeuvre around a temporary roundabout that has visibly replaced a seemingly useless traffic signal, you unknowingly become a participant in an ongoing Delhi Traffic Police social experiment aimed at making the Capital’s streets safer.

Put in place as part of a watch-and-learn initiative, these temporary roundabouts have come up at several ‘significant junctions’ in the last two months. They can be found in the vicinity of Ferozeshah Road, Janpath, Teen Murti Marg and Nizamuddin in Central Delhi, Rohini in Outer Delhi and Dwarka in the South-West.

Apart from reducing congestion on narrow Central Delhi streets, this arrangement of orange plastic cones placed within a 30-metre diameter is understood to avoid mishaps post sunset.

“While analysing the cause behind several fatal accidents at night, it was noticed that either the victim involved had jumped a traffic signal or failed to spot oncoming traffic, leading to a collision,” said Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Muktesh Chander.

“So we decided to observe whether roundabouts, which are hailed as a simple traffic management technique across the world, could be of any assistance given the massive vehicular population of the Capital,” Mr. Chander said, adding that the results observed, so far, had been encouraging.

Sources in the traffic unit said more junctions were being identified for the same purpose. In fact the unit was also mulling the feasibility of mini-roundabouts which allow traffic to temporarily merge at a junction but for a relatively smaller timeframe than the larger roundabouts.

Dr. P.K. Sarkar, professor of transport planning at the School of Planning and Architecture, welcomed the step but issued a word of caution to the traffic police and asked them not to go overboard with the idea. He also asked the drivers to respect others’ right of way.

“Roundabouts are a very simple arrangement that can go a long way in reducing vehicular congestion as well as the risk of collision at points of vehicular conflict; but not all junctions can function well as roundabouts,” Dr. Sarkar said.

“Instead of allowing the possibility of vehicles coming in conflict in a perpendicular fashion – like they would at most junctions in Delhi – at a roundabout, the point of conflict is replaced by a point of merging followed by a point of diverging which minimises the risk of collision. The driver must now ensure that the vehicle on his or her right has the right of way,” Dr. Sarkar added.