K.V. Aditya Bharadwaj

23 October 2017 01:24 IST

Motorists can park in a slot without booking as well; tender yet to be approved by BBMP council

If the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council gives its nod, motorists looking to park their cars and bikes in the central business district (CBD) will soon be able to book parking slots through an app on their phone 10 minutes in advance.

This facility, however, will come at a hefty price, from anywhere between ₹15 and ₹30 for a car and between ₹5 and ₹15 for a bike, per hour.

A decision to reintroduce paid parking in CBD was taken by the BBMP council in 2013, but has yet to be implemented. After two successive tenders in 2014 and 2015 failed to attract bidders, the financial bid of the third tender was opened recently and the bidder finalised.

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A senior engineering division official said Central Parking System, a Bengaluru-based startup which has been managing smart parking in Thane, Maharashtra, and Indore, Madhya Pradesh, has bagged the tender.

As a public-private partnership, the firm will develop the infrastructure and the app, and will pay ₹31.5 crore as annual rent to the civic body.

Paid street-level parking will be introduced on 85 roads, all in the CBD. The roads will be divided into three categories — groups A, B and C — with differential parking rates in play.

While 14 major roads such as M.G. Road, Brigade Road, Residency Road and Cunningham Road fall under Group A, 25 others such as Nrupatunga Road, Kasturba Road, Dispensary Road and Ali Asker Road are categorised as Group B. Another 46 roads, including BVK Iyengar Road, Haines Road, and Lavelle Road, — will be in Group C. All the 85 roads put together, the smart parking would open up only 3,600 slots for cars and 10,000 slots for two-wheelers.

Motorists will have to download an app, through which they can check for vacant slots and book a slot, following which they will have 10 minutes to occupy the space before it lapses. However, anybody can park in a slot without booking as well.

A sensor will record the parking time and calculate the fee when the driver comes back for the vehicle. Payment can be made through the app itself.

Mayor R. Sampath Raj told The Hindu that as both technical and financial bids of the latest tender were finalised as per the norms, he would ensure the council approval for it at the earliest.

However, paid street-level parking doesn’t enjoy the support of traffic management experts. M.N. Srihari said street-level parking was one of the main contributors for congestion in the central business district.

“Parking eats up almost a third of the road carriageway. It’s sad that the civic body is looking at it only from the revenue perspective. Instead, it must build more multi-level car parking facilities and ban all parking on roads,” he said.

Reserved parking slots for women on Church Street

Mayor R. Sampath Raj has mooted the idea of reserving 20% of the parking slots for women and this is being implemented on Church Street as a pilot. Mr. Sampath Raj said reserving parking slots for women would be an additional feature for their security. He added that he would explore with the private firm that has emerged as the winning bidder for smart parking to reserve slots for women across other streets as well.