Only an efficient public transport system can reduce the usage of personal vehicles
Statistics have been conspicuously crowned as the king of lies. But
the fact is that there is no other logical way to prove truth other than the damn statistics. Figures don’t lie and they definitely don’t when we say that lack of proper public transit systems and infrastructure leads to high usage of private cars in India.
This trend is most visible in urban areas. For instance, Delhi has a very high rate of migration. While the population continues to rise, the city has seen a marginal rise in the number of buses in the last four years. Result: the rise in personal vehicles has been 100%. China was facing the same problem till 2006. To solve this, they came up with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines in 2006. The system has been a run away hit and presently 50% of the all the trips in Chinese cities are done through public transport, majority of which are through buses. On the same lines, BRT has been started in India but is still in the trial phase and its future remains uncertain. Japan is another classic case of this trend. The market for new cars in Japan has shrunk from 7.78 million in 1990 to just 4.13 million in 2007. The reason for this is lack of proper parking facilities and the efficient public transportation in Japanese cities.
Not that high number of cars is a bad thing, but too many of them create problems. Pollution, accidents, jams are just to name a few. Indian city roads on an average occupy 12-14% of total land area. It’s 10% in Mumbai and 6% in Kolkata. The same roads carry more and more vehicles which lead to jams and accidents. “Indian cities are in the grip of motorisation which is why smooth mobility on roads is increasingly becoming a distant dream,” Anumita Roy Chaudhary, expert on transport in Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) shares with B&E. If one considers Europe, (known to have one of the best public transit system in the world), the whole economy depends heavily on efficient road transport, where 85% of the people travel by buses or coaches; which leads to less motorisation of roads.
Though there are big plans like setting up of 16 new flyovers and monorail in Mumbai, other Indian cities still don’t have such roadmaps. Indian policies, too, are not very supportive to public transportation. In other words, they encourage purchase of private cars. In India, one pays road tax only once during the purchase of car which is much less than the annual road tax paid by a public bus owner. Contrary to this, in Singapore, one has to bid for getting a licence even before buying a car.
‘More’ is increasingly becoming ‘less’ in India. However, not many want such a thing to happen. With fuel prices going up and inflation surpassing two digit figures every now and then, it is getting tough for Indian consumers to buy a car and maintain it. So, it’s only investment in public transit system that can substantially reduce this burden.
Statistics have been conspicuously crowned as the king of lies. But
the fact is that there is no other logical way to prove truth other than the damn statistics. Figures don’t lie and they definitely don’t when we say that lack of proper public transit systems and infrastructure leads to high usage of private cars in India.This trend is most visible in urban areas. For instance, Delhi has a very high rate of migration. While the population continues to rise, the city has seen a marginal rise in the number of buses in the last four years. Result: the rise in personal vehicles has been 100%. China was facing the same problem till 2006. To solve this, they came up with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines in 2006. The system has been a run away hit and presently 50% of the all the trips in Chinese cities are done through public transport, majority of which are through buses. On the same lines, BRT has been started in India but is still in the trial phase and its future remains uncertain. Japan is another classic case of this trend. The market for new cars in Japan has shrunk from 7.78 million in 1990 to just 4.13 million in 2007. The reason for this is lack of proper parking facilities and the efficient public transportation in Japanese cities.
Not that high number of cars is a bad thing, but too many of them create problems. Pollution, accidents, jams are just to name a few. Indian city roads on an average occupy 12-14% of total land area. It’s 10% in Mumbai and 6% in Kolkata. The same roads carry more and more vehicles which lead to jams and accidents. “Indian cities are in the grip of motorisation which is why smooth mobility on roads is increasingly becoming a distant dream,” Anumita Roy Chaudhary, expert on transport in Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) shares with B&E. If one considers Europe, (known to have one of the best public transit system in the world), the whole economy depends heavily on efficient road transport, where 85% of the people travel by buses or coaches; which leads to less motorisation of roads.
Though there are big plans like setting up of 16 new flyovers and monorail in Mumbai, other Indian cities still don’t have such roadmaps. Indian policies, too, are not very supportive to public transportation. In other words, they encourage purchase of private cars. In India, one pays road tax only once during the purchase of car which is much less than the annual road tax paid by a public bus owner. Contrary to this, in Singapore, one has to bid for getting a licence even before buying a car.
‘More’ is increasingly becoming ‘less’ in India. However, not many want such a thing to happen. With fuel prices going up and inflation surpassing two digit figures every now and then, it is getting tough for Indian consumers to buy a car and maintain it. So, it’s only investment in public transit system that can substantially reduce this burden.
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