Blogs

Imagine hailing a bus through a smartphone application in India for that daily commute from home to college or work.

On-demand transportation leverages technology to connect a bus in the vicinity with a passenger looking to travel in the same direction This implies following a demand responsive route to a pre-determined destination, finding passengers along the way. In contrast, conventional public buses ply along fixed corridors in a city, expecting to be found by commuters.

Convenient pick up aside, on-demand buses provide their passengers the assurance of seating for the...

On November 8, 2016, WRI India Sustainable Cities and Zehn Legal hosted part two of a two-part webinar series on the applicability of regulatory frameworks governing motor vehicles for on-demand taxi aggregators and other shared mobility enterprises in India. Part one of the series focused specifically on the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 and...

The Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 is the principal act of the Parliament of India that governs and regulates the road transport ecosystem in the country. It was enforced in June 1989 and is the go-to legislation for the granting of permits, registration of motor vehicles, licensing of drivers and conductors, insurance, liability, offences and penalties, and so on.

Over the last few years, many new business models have emerged that allow commuters to summon mobility options using services built on technology and innovative business models. However, the legality of these models are...

City buses, plying on both long and short distance routes, are the primary mode of transport for majority Indians, with over 25 billion trips recorded in 2014-15. The most vulnerable sections of society depend on buses as one of the cheapest and the most convenient means of commute, in small, medium and metro cities alike. Unfortunately, despite being the backbone of urban mobility, bus penetration in India is dismal. There are 1.29 buses per 1000 people in India, compared to China’s 1.89 and UK’s 2.77, and less than a fifth of Brazil’s 10.3, as of 2009 (Bus Karo 2.0 – Case Studies from...

The 22nd session of the Conference of Parties, COP22, began this week at Marrakech, Morocco. Last year’s event in Paris set into motion a historic and ambitious commitment for countries to tackle climate change. Industries now better understand that business-as-usual doesn’t cut it any more. There are clear challenges, especially with regard to raising the required finance for implementation and scaling up. Broadly, this is known as climate finance.

However, there is significant debate around various aspects of climate finance, including the definition, the issues with addressing...

Like many African cities, Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, is at the turnstile of urbanisation. Recognising the need to augment the existing inadequate public transport, the authorities are considering implementing a bus rapid transit (BRT) system in the city. In the first week of October, a 13-member high-level delegation from Addis Ababa visited India with the aim of learning from similar projects in Indian cities. The...

Cycling is one of the healthiest, most sustainable, and affordable modes of transport in Indian cities. It is also the most neglected. Since the launch of the Government of India’s Smart City Mission, there has been a renewed interest in non-motorised transport options. However, public bike-sharing systems have faced several issues. In Indore, for example, i-Bike, the city’s pilot bike-sharing initiative, has been prematurely discontinued.

If you consider the mobility patterns of the people of Indore, on an average, commuters travel a...

In July this year, Bengaluru witnessed heavy flooding which prompted the state government to issue a directive to clear all encroachments on storm water drains and lakebeds, articulating the cause and effect between the city’s development boom and the overburdening of its infrastructure. Over the years, wetland and low-lying areas that long provided critical storm water drainage had either been built up, or been used as a dumping ground for construction debris and solid waste, degrading its hydrologic functionality....

India has the highest number of road accident deaths in the world. In 2014, the National Crime and Records Bureau recorded 142,000 deaths, a sharp rise from 98,000 deaths in 2005. This increase has fast outpaced the corresponding population growth during the same time period. A majority of road accident victims are in the age group of 15 to 45 years, which not only puts a serious economic burden on their families, but also has a significant impact on the GDP of the country. This problem will grow to more alarming proportions, unless we make take urgent and far-reaching measures to...

Every year, approximately 1.25 million people die in road traffic crashes. In 2015, India recorded 146,133 road traffic fatalities, which means that we account for over 11 percent of the global numbers. While India is home to roughly two percent of all motorized vehicles globally, our roads are some of the most dangerous in the world. Experts agree that road safety needs a safe systems approach. A big deterrent to this in India, however, is...