Transforming urban mobility in India

Across nations, and through decades, economic development has been correlated to personal mobility. This has proven true even in a modern world replete with a wide portfolio of options for tele-connecting. So, as India aspires to be the second largest economy in the world, behind China by 2050, we must prepare for a rapid increase in demand for mobility.

In this four-part series, we will define the challenges, explore tools and opportunities for transforming mobility, propose a flexible framework for a sustainable mobility architecture, and examine its application in the context of a city.

Urban sprawl problems

Even as one may hope for uniform spread of prosperity across urban and rural India, experience over the past century reveals that per-capita income in a nation spurts when more than half its population is urban. Pundits attribute this to agglomeration economics, whereby, boosted by access to a wider range of opportunities, “people in cities are more productive, more innovative, and have higher skills”. In other words, apart from increased personal mobility, we also need to anticipate faster urbanisation as our economic growth accelerates. As this densification accelerates, we need to urgently address the questions: How should cities order their urban form? What does that mean for the kind of mobility solutions they need to put in place? Urban form and mobility architectures have a symbiotic relationship. Take for example Los Angeles. The addiction of Angelenos to the automobile has promoted unbridled urban sprawl that now stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the San Bernardino mountains. Greater Los Angeles (18 million population spread over 87,000 sq km) ranks number one among US cities in terms of expanse. It is also number one in density and length of roads and highways, yet LA is burdened with the worst traffic congestion and air quality among large US cities.

Increasingly, in the 21st century, planners are awakening to the reality that while they should have been designing cities for people, they were actually designing cities for cars. On the other hand, cities like Tokyo (housing more than twice the population of LA within less than a sixth of LA’s area), Singapore and Hong Kong have more compact footprints and a very significant dependence on mass transit. There are other benefits as well. While sprawling Dallas allocates 40 per cent of urban land area for roads to sustain its car-dependence, Tokyo makes do with allocating a mere 15 per cent of its precious urban land. Sadly, Indian cities do little to limit sprawl — and the proposal in Bengaluru to sustain sprawl with six new interconnected elevated roadways at a cost of over ₹15,000 crore seems to ignore global lessons.

These factors also manifest themselves in economics. Copenhagen with a sensible mix of public transit and bike-lanes spends about 7 per cent of regional GDP on transport, whereas a car-dependent Houston allocates over 17 per cent. Indian cities can ill afford such economic waste. Over the last two decades, Chennai has perversely seen the modal share of public transit diminish even as car and two-wheeler populations have soared, reflecting neglect of planning and well-targeted transit investments.

Densely populated cities also have a markedly lower ecological footprint when they mainly rely on shared or mass transit. New York City has lower per capita carbon emissions, despite higher average income, compared to San Francisco, an advantage mainly attributable to its transportation patterns. Furthermore, air quality degradation from automotive emissions is a growing menace. WHO data says 14 of the top 20 most polluted cities (measured by particulates) are in India.

Smokescreens galore

Scientific data to pinpoint sources of air pollution in India has been subject to much mis-interpretation. A detailed emission inventory study is currently underway, led by IIT-Madras, that should shed more light on the matter. However, a recent study in London revealed that even with a large fraction of cars complying with advanced Euro-6 emission standards, vehicular sources accounted for 55 per cent of air pollution (PM2.5). Yet Delhi has struggled to implement a comprehensive urban mobility policy to address its unhealthy air.

As India’s continued dependence on expensive imported oil seems certain for the foreseeable future, our mobility architecture must also be guided by energy efficiency. Reducing dependence on fossil fuels through more efficient mobility will contribute to both environmental and economic gains.

The NCR, now home to over 46 million inhabitants, has raced past Tokyo and its sprawl, at 58,300 sq km, shows no signs of restraint. Unless we rethink urban planning and favour densification and transit-oriented development, we will likely retrace the disastrous trajectory of Los Angeles. Transforming urban mobility requires a clear articulation of goals, careful framing of policies, targeted investments, and rigorous implementation backed by enforcement.

Fortunately, our quest to transform urban mobility can be boosted by several new developments.

The writer is Chairman, Celeris Technologies

COMMENT NOW