Hyderabad: With monsoon rains lashing the city and traffic snarls worsening, especially across the Cyberabad IT corridor, the Cyberabad traffic wing and the Society for Cyberabad Security Council (SCSC) have renewed their appeal to IT companies to implement staggered logout timings to ease peak-hour congestion.SCSC member Naved said that although similar appeals were made during past monsoons, most companies continue to cite client commitments as a constraint. “The lack of flexible exit timings results in thousands of employees exiting at the same time, choking arterial roads connecting Madhapur, Gachibowli, the Financial District and nearby areas,” he explained. “Even a 10–15-minute variation in logout times across companies can significantly reduce congestion,” said Cyberabad joint commissioner of police (traffic) Gajarao Bhupal. “Some companies have already responded positively and are implementing staggered exits,” he said. Bhupal pointed out that the absence of adequate RTC services in the IT corridor adds to the problem. “We are in discussions with the TSRTC to introduce new routes covering key IT roads. With the department planning to procure new AC buses, allocating some to this corridor could reduce four-wheeler traffic considerably,” he said. He explained the issue with a simple example. “If 15 companies each have one employee travelling to Mehdipatnam in separate cars, that’s 15 cars for 15 people. If the companies pool them into five cars, the volume drops by over 65 per cent. That’s the impact of coordinated planning.” Naved noted that rainfall worsens the situation further. “During rain, employees avoid two-wheelers and autos and opt for four-wheelers, which only adds to the congestion.” Carpooling, officials said, is a key solution. Discussions are ongoing with Uber to explore implementation, though the ride-hailing platform has raised concerns over revenue losses if individual carpooling is encouraged. “We are still exploring collaborative solutions,” the joint commissioner said. Meanwhile, in other parts of the city, schools in the north, central and west zones have already adopted staggered dispersal patterns. “Students are released at 10-minute intervals to prevent overcrowding outside school gates,” said DCP (traffic) Ashok Kumar. “In cases where one auto or van picks up children from multiple schools, they now wait off-premises to avoid blocking roads.” To tackle the growing challenges, the Cyberabad traffic police are actively promoting carpooling as a sustainable commuting solution. Awareness campaigns are in the pipeline, along with proposals to improve last-mile connectivity through company-run shuttles and better coordination with local transport providers.
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