Preference Contour Model for Traffic Planning and Management of Tourist Place in Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Abstract

The traffic system, in any tourist intensive place, requiring of static or dynamic seasonal planning needs to be monitored with an effective Management Information System (MIS). Properly designed planning tools help in controlling the growth of traffic population addressing the needs of sustainable development especially in an island atmosphere where land use pattern is governed by tourism-related activities and capacity is restricted due to limited natural resources. Havelock Island, known for its beaches, rich coral reefs, and lush green forest and much sought after tourist destination by all tourists visiting Andaman and Nicobar Islands, is one such tourist destination where concentrated development of tourism-related infrastructures has made network of roads spread across the islands leaving less scope for expansion and posing challenge for overloaded capacity for existing carriageway. The growth of tourism industry for last one decade has been a major contributor to the increased economic activity throughout the islands and also it has created jobs making it a dominant economic activity. The impacts of tourism, on the other side of this growth, are not widely understood therefore still has not become greatest interest or concern. Many people think of tourism in terms of economic impacts, jobs, and taxes; however, the range of impacts includes uncontrolled growth of infrastructure and vehicular population. The local administration imposing restriction of inflow of vehicles to Havelock Island, gave the understanding, for the first time, that tourism development may result in many and complex impacts. A study was carried out for finding the essential features of Havelock tourism business and its related link to vehicular population. The study included a survey of identified roads to various tourist destinations spread across Havelock Island, traffic volume survey during the peak timings, hotel occupancy rate, and inflow of tourists in Havelock Island. The future requirement of traffic facilities and related infrastructure could have been analysed with any of the conventional forecasting tools but it related to a static growth pattern. The off-season inflow was much less as compared to the peak season flow of tourists. But the prevailing methodologies of forecasting were only giving related data for probable increase in traffic and infrastructure facilities but were not addressing the ecological sustainability and resource management for livelihood security. This envisaged development of a model applying information and communication technology (ICT) network matrix for Havelock Island as a useful tool in assessing the tourist transport requirement in Havelock. The matrix defined different level of transport facilities as preference contours which would give the user to choose the contour as per their convenience and place of stay in the island and at the same time will allow the authorities to implement facilities which are sustainable and suitable to the fragile island ecology. It will support productivity, sustainability of livelihood through the resource management. The outreach of ICTs in microlevel of societal environment and its direct and indirect use can be linked for creating a wide network of Management Information System (MIS) which can be made convergent for traffic micromanagement and safeguarding inflow of vehicular population. The paper suggests that ICTs can be extensively used in development as they are so multifaceted and easily adaptable with island population having high-literacy rate compared to other areas of the country. The study drew a conclusion of an innovative institutional mechanism to link tourist and transport facility requirement by creating different contours of preferences with suitable ICT intervention and exploring sustainable development framework.