Independence Day 2023 | Vision@2047: Will India have sustainable urban transport?

HS Sudhira, director of Gubbi Labs, a Bangalore-based research collective, believes that by 2047, nearly half of the country's population will live in urban areas and with the challenges posed by climate change, urban transportation will shift to Electric Vehicles completely.

Sci-fi movies and series are fascinating. Whether they admit or not, almost every sci-fi movie junkie is obsessed with travel — be it teleportation in the Star Trek series or whizzing around parallel universes and through time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s another matter that commuters frequently stuck in traffic jams, say for example at Bangalore’s infamous Silk Board junction, also obsess about it!

Consider these numbers: India’s road network grew by over 30 per cent in the last decade, but vehicle registrations grew by at least three times; in June 2023, over 3.27 lakh cars were sold across the country. India has a network of 6.7 million km of roads and is placed around 115th in the world in terms of per capital length. But the most dismaying: on average, an Indian motorist wastes close to eight days in an Indian metro stuck in traffic jams.

This despite the fact that over the last decade India grew its road network faster than ever before, seen rapid expansion of public transport, introduction of better vehicles and more electric vehicles. However, there are signs that the next 25 years will possibly not just progress but also be qualitatively better.

“By around 2047, nearly half of the country's population will be living in the urban areas. And about half of them would be living in only the top 100 cities (by population). That implies another half of the urban population or about 25 per cent of the country's population will be in smaller towns and cities. Given the demographic divide, urban transport is poised to set the direction for urban agenda,” says HS Sudhira, director of Gubbi Labs (a research collective) and who holds a doctorate in Urban Planning and Governance from Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science.

“With the challenges posed by climate change and the transition to electric vehicles, there would certainly be a shift to EVs completely. More critically, mobility of people (through all modes including walking or cycling) should be the focus rather than mobility of automobiles. It would be interesting to see what role autonomous vehicles would play in the coming decades. There will be a fair amount of uncertainty to predict the scenario in 2047 due to disruptions in technology and the challenges posed by climate change and disaster risk,” he points out.

Given this context, it is imperative that the governments focus on improving mobility in all urban areas, not necessarily the top 100 cities or million-plus cities. “Ideally, the emphasis will be on public transportation by dis-incentivising private modes of transportation for the greater common good. With that mobility of people walking and cycling would get a natural thrust. To enable this, there needs to be innovation in institutional arrangements for planning, operations and maintenance of urban transport infrastructure. The prevalent mechanisms of separate SPVs may seem good for a start (as it has been now), but in the long run, they pose challenges for integration of plans and ensuring coordination among different aspects of mobility (as evident from many cities).”

Alongside, Sudhira feels the need for separate focus and treatment for the non-million-plus cities as most them are also deeply connected to rural areas. “A critical component is to enhance the capacity of urban practitioners who can plan and manage urban transport efficiently, backed by proper statutory and institutional arrangements,” he says.

How to achieve the goal?

“To start with, we need to formulate an appropriate policy that would ensure urban transport is sustainable and equitable. In addition, it would be critical to ensure they are resilient to risks posed by climate change and disasters. The said policy has to translate into newer urban laws that would ensure and consolidate all urban transportation matters under a single agency. In addition, we need a differential mechanism for million-plus and non-million-plus cities, but with an overarching aim to ensure mobility of people over automobiles that is safe, accessible, sustainable and equitable,” says Sudhira.

“Along with the law, we need a newer public service delivery institution that can efficiently plan, integrate plans from all modes, and ensure coordination of activities, thereby ultimately delivering a safe and convenient commuter experience. All of these would also require investments through innovative mechanisms, which can have a fair share of public-and-private partnerships, and don't pinch the commuter,” he adds.

He has some suggestions at the individual level, too. “People need to be aware of the big picture and arrive at a consensus on the big picture (with the goals/vision as above). And then push their elected representatives to formulate policies, make newer laws, create an appropriate institutional mechanism for such a service delivery. All of these would also require thought leadership by the political establishment and a supportive bureaucracy to fulfill them,” he says, adding, “At the moment, all of us are pursuing our goals individually (selfishly) by way of using personal modes of transport and disregarding the role of public transport and of non-motorised modes of transport. The use of public transportation and non-motorised transport would certainly serve the greater common good, but in the absence of this, it just leads to another example of the tragedy of the commons!”