ROLE OF PARATRANSIT IN REGIONAL PASSENGER MOVEMENT: SILCHAR, ASSAM

Paratransit is a specialized transport service which acts as a bridge between the private automobile and public transit. It mostly provides shared ride service and door to door service maintaining flexibility in terms of route and schedule. The goal of this study is to assess the role of paratransit in the regional passenger movement. The paratransit vehicles are used as a substitute of bus service in the vicinity of urban area particularly in the NE region. The reason may be lower population density, narrow roads and the frequency of service. The small size Paratransit vehicles like Auto-rickshaw, Cruiser, Tata-sumo, Winger, Tata-magic, Auto-van, Mahindra Maxx, Ambassador are found to be very effective to provide services in the semi-urban/ rural areas at a higher frequency. Various surveys like modal spilt survey, vehicular occupancy survey, operator survey and techno-economic characteristic survey of the vehicle have been conducted in the study area and the share of Paratransit in passenger movement have been found out with respect to all the modes. The degree of variations of the level of utility of regional Paratransit at various locations has been studied and presented. Suggestions and recommendations have been made to improve the Paratransit service systems and the study area. KEYWORDS: paratransit, automobile, route, regional, passenger, road network