Jessore Road: The shortcut to Jessore Road from VIP Road through the airport has spawned what could be the longest two-way traffic snarls in town.

Whether someone is going towards Belghoria, Birati or Madhyamgram through VIP Road or coming towards the city through Jessore Road, trust the logjam on either side of the Adhai No. Gate to add up to 45 minutes to the travel time.

On a bad day, which is often, people miss flights and reach work or home late just because of this traffic monster that police can't tame.

Dipanjan Saha, a 31-year-old resident of Madhyamgram who works in Sector V, said he dreads the drive back home from work every evening. "The congestion starts on VIP Road, near the entry to the airport slip road. I get stuck there for 40 minutes to an hour almost every time while returning from office," he said.

A family from Birati, barely 6km from the airport, was the last one to board an 11.15pm flight because they hadn't bargained for the snarl he encountered on Jessore Road after 10pm. "We had a night flight and started off from home with ample time in hand," recounted Kamalika Ghosh.

Jessore Road used to be in bad shape but that hasn't been a problem since the highway was widened two years ago. The police deployment at the Adhai No. and No. 1 gates isn't inadequate either, but regular commuters say there is little effort to regulate traffic.

"They just stand there, feet wide apart, and wave at vehicles. Is that traffic management?" said techie Mousoom Sinha, who lives in a complex along Jessore Road and works in Sector V.

The T-junction at the Adhai No. Gate invariably chokes as soon as heavy vehicles enter VIP Road post-10pm and sometimes earlier. Many motorists now enter the airport complex through the flyover instead of entering the chaos of the slip road. They take the road in front of the Airport police station to reach Adhai No. Gate from the opposite side, adding to the congestion there. The police and civic volunteers, at least six on each shift, stand there watching and waving.

Airline operators have taken up the problem with the police several times and even made recommendations to solve it. "We have suggested having another gate at the Jessore Road exit/entry point and widening a stretch of Jessore Road by removing buses parked randomly under the flyover, among other impediments," said Capt. Sarvesh Gupta, chairman of the airline operators' committee, Calcutta airport.

The lack of police intervention at the junction where traffic lands on Jessore Road from Belghoria Expressway via the flyover is another reason for the snarls.

The signal cycle at the Adhai No. Gate is around three minutes and 45 seconds long. At night, it extends till five minutes.

Bhargav Maitra of IIT Kharagpur, who specialises in transportation engineering, said that for areas with high density of vehicles, it is never advisable to have signal cycles longer than three minutes.

Maitra suggested that the police rotate traffic flow in a way that cars entering the airport slip road can exit without waiting long at the signal.