Assessment of land use and development pattern along urban rail transit corridor case study of Chennai

Abstract

Growing urban population along with automobile dependency of the cities has given rise to several challenges like immense traffic on the roads, congestion, pollution of atmosphere, hours of waiting on the roads, accidents, thus deteriorating the overall quality of life of the cities. As an attempt to solve such issues, most of the cities are planning for rail based mass rapid transit systems. These transit systems due to improved accessibility of the areas influence the land use which in turn has an impact on the pattern of development. However contextual factors play an important role in the level and type of development that takes place in the influence areas of the urban rail corridor. This study hypothesizes that urban rail transit system is one of the highly influencing factors, which along with the other co-influencing factors determines development pattern of an urban area. The study focuses on exploring impact of urban rail transit on the land use and development pattern of the influence corridor of the transit with case study of Chennai, India. Trend of population densification, growth and change in land use were spatially analyzed over a period of time since the commencement of rail transit to present. Literature study and primary survey are used to identify the factors which along with rail, influence growth and development along the rail transit corridor. Factor analysis was used as a statistical technique to study the pattern of relationship which exists between them and extract the latent factors which explain growth and development in the urban area. Arc GIS was used as a tool to study the surface trend of each of the factors in the urban areas. Results show that growth of population spreads from the old settlement which later became the Central Business District (CBD) towards the rail transit corridor. However, it took several years before the impact was visible. It is found that densification near the CBD and rail is an important factor which explains development in the urban area.