With economic liberalisation and growing income in the country, lifestyle of urban citizens changed over a period of time. Its impact had also been seen on citizens’ mobility patterns. This change has resulted in congestion on roads and increasing air pollution. Most of the big cities function infinite spaces and building new roads or introducing new alternatives is not always possible to address mobility issues. Many cities of the world have addressed these issues with policy interventions and novel solutions; Indian cities can surely learn from them to reform mobility policies and their transport systems to optimize urban space
Cities are sprawling to accommodate increasing inflow of population and this has added burden on local corporations or transport undertakings to expand the area of their respective transport services. With expensive housing options within city limits, a large part of the urban population is now living in suburbs. They commute long distances for work in personal vehicles either because of non-availability or inconvenient mobility alternatives at their disposal.
Urban centres are buzzing with upscale shopping malls, international food chains, multiplexes, etc. People are no longer shopping only in weekly markets or in neighbourhood markets; they are travelling longer distances for shopping and leisure, not just for work. In these trips, people do not lend themselves willingly to public transport. The reason being lack of convenience and reliability of public transport in most of our cities. However, the swanky and punctual Delhi Metro is one of the exceptions. That is why the Delhi Metro is among the finest examples of mass transit systems. Despite this, the wealthy and upper-middle class do not prefer metro also because of non-availability of quick and efficient last mile connectivity options. Urban mobility is a complex problem and needs multi-pronged solution model.
The fallout of increasing cars in cities
There are serious implications on quality of life and economic productivity of cities when they fail to manage urban transport systems and people become increasingly dependent on personal vehicles in absence of strong, economical, convenient and robust public transport system. A report ‘Modern and efficient public transport system’ published under STEER Program of the EU suggests that for a trip between home and work the private car takes up between 10 and 30 times more space than public transport and five times more than the bicycle.The increasing dependence on private transport results in congestion, lost productivity, worsening pollution and a terrible quality of life. This situation also forces the government to widen roads and build new ones to accommodate the increasing fleet of private cars. According to Transforming Mobility report by Niti Aayog, congestion in the four biggest metros causes annual economic losses of over $22 billion.
Policies for controlling car usage in cities need to be strengthened. Many cities including Singapore and European cities like London have congestion charges. Such charges have shown results in shifting of mobility patterns. These cities have for sure implemented such stringent policies but the good point to note is that they provided some of the best mobility alternatives to their residents and did not leave them in the lurch. Studies suggest that the London congestion charge immediately cut traffic in the demarcated area by 20%, helped speed up buses, and improved revenues.
The second area that needs attention is the parking facility and the charges. In India, parking is almost always free at market places and office spaces because people find a way to park on streets or sideways. And, if there are charges, they are nominal. When urban local bodies are planning policies on parking, they should not just take into consideration the capital and operational expenditure of running parking facilities but they should also consider external costs such as pollutant emissions, noise, accidents and congestion since the car driver bears only a minimal share of the cost he imposes on the community. These issues must be discussed in detail while bringing about mobility reforms. We should also be looking at No Vehicle Zone policy of European Cities. Often, the corporation succumbs to local pressure but these issues should be advocated for larger public discourse. We can start with a couple of No Vehicle zones in each city.
The image problem of public transport options
When we speak of policies for restricting car use in cities, the initiatives must go hand in hand with measures aimed at providing alternatives to private vehicle users. When we look at public transport options in Indian cities, the image of overcrowded local trains of Mumbai, and dilapidated buses with broken glass panes run by city corporations come to mind. However, the situation has changed in many cities after the central government pumped in money through JnNURM but the fundamental issue of convenience and ease of travelling has not been addressed yet. There are several operational issues which commuters face. When India is digitizing at such a fast pace why can’t our buses be tracked online and commuters be informed about the timing of next bus enroute. The frequency of buses in cities should also be worked upon on the basis of supply and demand. They need to use contact-less fare payments using suitable cards, since buying tickets is also a barrier.
The bottom line is that the success of any public transport network depends on how easy and efficient it is to use. People expect the service to be reliable, well integrated and supported by convenient last mile connectivity. Our buses and local trains need a makeover and I don’t think that there are financial constraints. If we can spend hundreds of crores in building metro lines, we can surely think of improving the design and build quality of existing options.