Page 43 - TT Magazine Feb-Mar 2019

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The panel discussion on ‘Reinventing Public
Transport’ at Smart Mobility 2018 in Mumbai
focussed on buses and its potential to cater as

a main mode of transport to work as first & last
mile connectivity for major mass transport
infrastructure like railways & metros.

The panellists were Prof HM Shivanand Swamy,
Executive Director, Centre for Excellence in
Urban Transport, CEPT University; Prasanna
Patwardhan, President, Bus Operators
Confederation of India; Rushabh Shah, Co-

founder and Product Head, Cityflo; Pranjali
Deshpande, Senior Programme Manager, ITDP;
Vivek Ogra, Director - Technology & Innovation,

Vbsoft India Limited and Dhawal Ashar, Senior
Associate – Urban Transport & Road Safety, WRI
India who moderated the discussion.

o we want public spaces. While private vehicles and
transport to become the motorcycles have gone up, the number
first choice for those who of buses are consistently going down.
cannot afford and for Despite this, state transport
Dthose who can also get a undertakings carry about 75 to 80
personal motor vehicle? What is needed million passengers per day as opposed to
to make this change happen? How can the railway systems that carry only about
we achieve it and what are the barriers 25 million. Private buses carry another
to implementation? How do we focus 160 to 180 million passengers but what
on planning, regulations, taxations, we have in India right now is some 16.5
infrastructure and technology?
lakh buses of which 15 lakhs are private
Opening the discussion Dhawal Ashar buses and about 1.5 lakh public buses.
pointed out that looking at the metros But what we also have is an alarming
in India, the ridership of Bus Transport situation as a lot of our fleets are very
Undertakings have drastically reduced. old, only one-third of these fleets is just
There are many smaller cities in India about less than ten years old. Now,
that do not even have a bus service yet. despite carrying such large numbers,
On the other hand, motor vehicles have despite knowing that buses have the
grown exponentially. Fleet composition potential to really relieve all our cities
is changing, motorcycles are becoming of congestion, these systems are not
more and more prominent in our road getting enough attention.

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