Vijoy Prakash, the principal secretary of the transport department, delivers a lecture, “Learning from Korea”, in Patna on Sunday. He elaborated on various points, which he observed during a week-long workshop, “Building Leaders in Urban Transport Planning”, in Seoul (South Korea) between September 21 and 27 organised by World Bank and Korea Transport Institute. Prakash said: “Based on the observations made during the workshop and the overview of the transport system in Korea, I assessed that we can learn a whole lot of things from them. We need to have a transport-oriented master plan for the city, wherein private vehicles should be discouraged and public transport should be promoted. We can also develop dedicated bus corridors on the thoroughfares. Different modes of public transport, including proposed metro rail and buses, in Patna can also be integrated.” He also emphasised on giving equal importance to pedestrian movement by developing dedicated space for them on the streets. “The Korean government also has a centralised operation and monitoring system for traffic movement, wherein every vehicle is monitored. We can also follow the same for effective traffic management here,” Prakash said. Text by Piyush Kumar Tripathi, picture by Ashok Sinha