TrafficInfraTech Magazine Linking People Places & Progress
Nitish Arora, Manager, Electric Vehicle & Clean Technology Track and Aishwarya Raman, Head of Research and Associate Director, Ola Mobility Institute explain how shifting consumers’ focus from ownership to shared access of products and services can usher in a change
It took close to 60 years for the number of registered vehicles in India to grow from 0.3 million in 1951 to 105 million in 2008. But it took only six years from 2009 to 2015 to add another 105 million vehicles on the road. This alarming growth has imposed huge socioeconomic costs on the people. Private automobiles are especially responsible for contributing to 20 percent passenger transport emissions while supporting only four percent of total passenger transit activity in Indian cities. With 14 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities being in India, there is a pressing need to adopt, augment, and harness a fresh perspective.
The silver lining? The wave of shared mobility through organized services has just begun in India. Once it reaches the peak, its role in decongesting cities would become more evident, making mobility affordable, accessible, mosafer and greener. Given the low per capita car ownership of 22 per 1000 citizens compared to 980 in the US and 850 in the UK, it’s an opportune time for India to embrace sustainable mobility solutions for a green and prosperous future. Since inception in 2015, shared rides have saved over 37 million liters of fuel and reduced CO2 emissions by over 63 million kgs on a single mobility platform like Ola.
The Ola Nagpur Project – India’s first multimodal e-mobility project
The breakthrough in decarbonizing transport, though, comes in the form of India’s first multimodal electric mobility project in Nagpur. Involving a demand-responsive fleet of e-cabs, and e-rickshaws, the project has achieved staggering numbers in one and a half years:
• Served over 3,50,000 customers Completed over 75 lakh clean km
• Saved approximately 5.7 lakh liters of fossil fuel
• Cut CO2 emission by over 1,230 tons
The pilot has unequivocally demonstrated that widespread adoption of Electric Vehicles will rely on shared mobility. It offers immense learning in operationalizing e-mobility in a country with extreme climatic conditions. All it needs is the right business models and enabling policy regulatory environment to foster sustainable mobility solutions at scale.