Strong correlation between GDP growth and mobility: Sumantran

“Mobility is the lifeblood of the nation and there is a strong correlation between GDP growth and mobility,” said V Sumantran, Chairman, CII Smart Mobility, and Chairman, Celeris Technologies.

Addressing CII-Karnataka Government conference on Smart Mobility 2018 themed ‘Transforming Urban Mobility in India’, Sumantran said that despite the correlation, the Indian economy is fortunate to be growing at 6-8 per cent and it is necessary for the country to pay attention to its mobility architecture. If not, the current GDP growth will be jeopardised.

Stating that urbanisation is a key element that influences mobility, he said that 53 per cent of the country’s population will reside in urban centres by 2050 from the current 35 per cent.

More roads will not solve the problem of rapid urbanisation as the economic value of land is extremely high and it won’t be feasible to allocate land just for roads.

According to him the top four cities in India sacrifices $22 billion of the economy every year due to congestion, the average speed of mobility has dropped to 15 km per hour. The government has an important role to play in urban mobility in terms of planning investment and policies. It is necessary to address the mobility issue as a social need.

Population pressure

Chairing the session on ‘Envisioning a city of future’, K Venugopal, Wholetime Director, Kasturi & Sons, said the problems of Indian cities with respect to mobility stems from rapid urbanisation.

“More than 50 per cent of our population will reside in urban areas in the next 10 to 15 years. This will place stress on existing infrastructure and poses several new challenges. Going urban is not the best way of ensuring high growth rates. The challenge we face is to make mobility quick, efficient, low-cost and sustainable,” Venugopal said.

Pradeep Parameswaran, President, Uber India & South Asia, in his presentation said that data is integral to smart mobility solutions.

Citing the Bengaluru example of commuting between Byppanahalli and Whitefield, he said that data has shown that over the last year the travel time has increased by 15 per cent from 45 minutes to 52 minutes. It is estimated that the metro when operational, will take 31 minutes to cover the same distance.

“However, this does not factor in last-mile connectivity and if we stitch together a transportation solution that address this issue, the travel time will be reduced significantly to 44 minutes, which is seismic,” he said.

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