A Good Synthesis Of Climate And Transport Economics Would Help

Context: An analysis of urban India’s need for sustainable mobility suggests that we must rely heavily on clean public transit systems.

Issues associated with transport sector in India

• Transport contributes 10% of global emissions, and are rising faster than any other sectors.
• Traffic saturation: Metropolitan cities are presently saturated with traffic.
• Behavioural issues: Unauthorized street parking and avoidable traffic congestions.
  • Diminishing motivation to use public transport, walk or cycle.
• Short sighted policies: Creation of new transport infrastructure for decongestion for temporary period.
• Priority clashes: Preservation of environment vs developing new express ways.

Way Forward

• Development of new ‘transit cities’: These are developed in response to traffic-saturation crises, where cars are considered a luxury instead of necessity, and focus on public-transport investments.
  • Characterized by a package of services so comprehensive, convenient and integrated.
  • Inclusive: Add value to majority of urban dwellers, as marginal social benefit of it seems to exceed its marginal social cost.
• Transport needs greater emphasis on improving ‘mobility’ and ‘accessibility’: Mobility means focusing on efficient movement of people & goods with the help of public transport and accessibility is focusing on the reachability of destinations.
  • Road spaces must be reallocated for cars to reduce congestion delays, increase traffic speed and perhaps reduce overall traf?c levels by signi?cant amounts.
• Improving public transport needs strong government support, with the aim to reduce private cars on streets, that could be achieved through time- and location-specific road and parking-slot pricing.
• Promotion of footpaths and cycling tracks may complement expressways and streets, even as public transport is promoted.
  • It ensures redesigning timing, frequency and connectivity of public transport to synchronize the same with various other services such as Metro and monorail networks in metropolitan cities.
• Promotion of transport-sector investments favours environmental sustainability: For example, Delhi Metro earned carbon credits from the UN under its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and which other cities’ transit systems are exploring too.