After going through the information we got from Vadodara Police Department, we were in a state of confusion about what to do next. We had all the information we needed about on-street parking but we had reached a kind of dead-end when it came to off-street parking information. We had no idea who to go to for the off-street and the commercial buildings parking areas. That is when we thought, why don’t we go talk to our teachers in the Civil Engineering Department of our respective colleges. And I went and talked to Prof. Nipa Desai, Head Of Department, Civil Engineering Department, Babaria Institute Of Technology.
After giving her a basic idea of what Park: On The Go! aims and strives to do she was more than happy to help since, in her own words, “Traffic is a topic that really interests me.”
She further helped us get in touch with Prof. S. M. Dave, Associate Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Faculty Of Technology And Engineering, M. S. U., Vadodara. Prof. S. M. Dave is currently pursuing his research on a topic related to Traffic and when we asked him if we could meet him once, he happily obliged!
The meeting started out, as usual, with the customary introduction of Park: On The Go! Prof. Dave told us that he did have a basic idea about it since he had already read about us in the newspapers. 😀 After we told him what information we required he completely took over from us. He talked with as such enthusiasm and glee. And we just knew that we had found somebody who would guide us flawlessly.
He explained to us how we could refer to the General Development Control Regulations (GDCR) published by Vadodara Urban Development Authority (VUDA) to understand the laws of how Parking is allocated in Commercial buildings. He taught us how to calculate the capacity of a Parking lot. He even told us that the information we are looking for would be with the Town Planning Department and how, whenever we approach them, we should be prepared on our side with a list of Buildings that we wanted the information for. He even gave his insights on what areas of the city we should start with that face acute parking problems.
He threw some light over the social benefits of organizing the parking sector. He explained the concept of “The High cost of Free parking”. He told us how he has been working on the topic of making parking a paid commodity in India and how it is the need of the hour. He explained, how the Government could use the revenue generated from the parking sector to better the public transport systems. This would encourage many people to stop using private vehicles and start using public transportation. This would in turn, help curb pollution and the misuse of fuel. After the discussion we truly realised how amateur our vision is in front of him.
(From left to right) Prof. S. M. Dave, Rishabh Shah, Hardik Patel and Smit Shah
The meeting ended with him giving us a lot of websites we could refer to and a great many points to ponder over.
We truly wish to convey our gratitude to Prof. Nipa Desai and Prof. S. M. Dave for their time and the valuable knowledge they shared with us. The world really needs teachers like them! 🙂
Park: On the go 