 Hello and welcome to this show called City Sense and as you know we discuss issues about cities across the globe and of course our own Indian cities. How are Indian cities grappling with some of the basic elements of livelihood, some of the basic issues of mobility, sanitation and how to make our cities better, more livable. In this continuity today we have Professor Geetham Tiwari who is a professor in the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and who actually is heading a unit called the Transportation and Research Unit that speaks about the entire issue of mobility and I've had the opportunity to visit the institute and in fact participate in one of the seminars there. They have astounding work and also they have, I wouldn't say, it's more than contemporary you know kind of vision I mean what actually ails mobility in the Indian urban spectrum. So welcome Professor Geetham and it's really nice nice that you are here. I think what is very pertinent in the Indian context is the way cities are built, the way we are handling our mobility issues. Take for example a small town like Simla where the PCU is somewhere around 70,000. So you know 70,000 cars entering the town in a gap of almost 16 hours it's completely unsustainable and then the cities get choked and one of the ways in which one of the solutions that different city governments and even state and national governments are suggesting to construct flyovers, widen your roads, thinking that once you have a flyover you will get rid of the traffic snarl but we find there's more traffic snarl, there's more pollution and I think all this is also linked to and I've gone through the white paper that Professor Geetham you've brought out and it's a fantastic white paper on India's mobility concerns. So I would just start from there and what does this white paper speak about, what are the challenges in Indian cities and how do you see the future of Indian cities as far as mobility is concerned and I think to me mobility is not just about transport perspective it's more than that you know it speaks about pollution, it speaks about carbon footprint and it speaks about all those issues. So over to you Professor Geetham. Thank you so much and this is really thanks so much for inviting me to this forum and I have actually heard your earlier discussions also and I'm very excited and thankful to you for giving me this opportunity. So your question about mobility in Indian cities let me just start with what we have tried to do in this white paper because earlier than that we have done several other documents this white paper specifically tries to provide a guidance to city authorities how to select urban transport systems kind of give a very simple guideline with city authorities decision makers can follow and understand that we want to make our city sustainable we want to provide safe and efficient mobility to all road users in a city and all our cities have varied road users we have pedestrians we have people on bicycles we have people moving on motorized tow wheelers and cars and using public transport. So essentially how can we select a transport system which can ensure that safe and efficient options are available to all our citizens. Now in this regard we have to look at two aspects of it one is that what do people want and of course you know across different income groups across different age groups this question will be answered differently but essentially people do want to move from point A to point B as fast as possible and some options that they can afford easily. Now if we look at public transport systems that is individuals are not designing that that is to be provided by the public authority and without going into too much detail we already have in several other forums and I guess in this forum also you have discussed earlier that it's already well established that if we continue to make a planning for cars for personal motorized vehicles that is not really giving us any sustainable options so it is very. That is that is a general push also. You are inducing people to buy more cars because you're providing them easy loans and all so I mean so what do you I mean definitely so I actually I would like to explain it that you know what people want in terms of options is very much influenced by the kind of soft and hard infrastructure we create around it for that now look at very simple example so if we keep widening the roads which you were saying earlier because there is congestion thinking that you know cars will move smoother but it is also telling people that you should buy a car because we are going to make a very good infrastructure for you so more cars come in the system and there is global evidence now that this strategy doesn't work there is enough latent demand for cars that the roads are full completely very quickly we can also use for other modes and there also we have global evidence you make a road safer for let's say bicycles and initially there are fewer people using bicycles and in our country actually this is very interesting data we have that a lot of people are walking and using bicycles also but in a very hostile environment any any figure pros and what percentage of people commute on bicycle or are pedestrians for their you know yeah for the some of the best numbers we started getting from national census in 2011 census and the data was published in 2016 about travel surveys and the census asked two questions how do you commute to work and what distance so this is only commute to work and not overall travel and distances so this gave really interesting amazing data and the it has been published by district wise urban districts and rural districts so in that we found that in urban districts the walking trips could go from minimum 25% going up to 55% bicycle trips also are on an average 20% but there is a variation based on the kind of states we are looking at the states which are slightly higher per capita income the share of bicycle goes down okay but in poorer states we still have very high percentage of bicycles okay so it's also a hierarchy question i mean that you forget when you're planning overall pattern we started understanding that pedestrian trips remain almost constant regardless of incomes regardless of type of city we are talking about because even in deli which has highest per capita availability of cars in the country 35 trips of pedestrian trips well it's it's great yeah it's i mean the town that i come from it's almost 44 percent it's similar yes absolutely and he yes absolutely but the question is the problem is here lies that if you look at travel pattern yes it's very much what we call sustainable we want more people to walk we want more people to use public transport but the environment is very hostile as far as planning is concerned design of infrastructure is concerned it is not meeting the requirements so who are the people walking and using bicycles and i would say even public transport people who don't have any choices so today if i'm using a bus in deli i'm really looking forward to the time i can have more income and buy a two wheeler because my walk to bus stop is very difficult i'm waiting at the bus stop the service is very unreliable and when i get a bus it's crowded okay you can say we are designing metro systems in many cities which is true more than 16 cities in india have invested in designing metro system now what is the issue with metro system so in this white paper we showed there are two aspects in using any public transport system but also the question of affordability so one is that when we are looking at the trip distribution the numbers that we started understanding in detail from census majority trips are also short trips okay so what does that mean i mean so it means that yeah less than five kilometer is the most dominant kind of trips people are not traveling very long distances to go to work okay less than five kilometers in deli we found less 40 trips are less than five kilometers and almost about 60 to 70 trips are less than 10 kilometers then we looked at overall district patterns what we got from census so we found that long trips longer than 20 kilometer is kind of stable and is hovering around six to seven percent only okay but the medium trips that we are looking at let's say more than five kilometers up to 15 20 kilometers is about 30 40 percent okay so what's the understanding why are we discussing about trip distances yeah type of public transport that we provide has an implication for that okay so if i provide a metro system so we did the calculations i did shown in that white paper so if you do if i am going only three kilometers up to five kilometers in fact and in the best case scenario metro stop is only five minutes away from my home i take five minutes walk to metro stop it's a very good system every two minutes i have a train so i wait only every three minutes actually that is the best possible scenario right now so i wait for about two three minutes for the train and since i have gone up and down so that's because it's not that great so it's taken additional two three minutes so about 12 minutes i have spent before boarding the metro okay three kilometers a short distance i quickly travel and i get down but if i calculate door to door journey time yeah it is about 20 25 minutes for a three kilometer trip if i had bicycled it would take only 12 minutes absolutely yeah so extend this to the implication of long and short trips that is the part which is discussed here that up to about 10 to 12 kilometers and longer than five kilometers bus is a good option okay why it is better than metro because it is at great we are not going up or down in metro system either you have to go you have to climb up climb up so that's additional and then bus if you're able to create a few priorities for it and also professor get them the pricing question because you know the bus is far cheaper yeah yeah that was the next issue which is discussed in the white paper for metro we estimated that your household income minimum has to be 36 000 rupees per month for one person to use metro to go to work every day okay but if you're using a bus the average household income can be 12 000 rupees okay there's a huge difference yeah but today also you'll find who are the people using metro systems that we have provided it is the middle class people and young people it's not really very old people are very children because the way you know again any public transport is all about how you provide access to it how am I walking is it safe walking environment those are the issues we haven't solved neither for bus nor for metro unfortunately and for metro we've invested so much money so that's the other thing you know this talks about we don't get into too much of financing because my take is no public transport can make profits from fare box this is globally is known it's a public service and it's a public service because if we are able to do it well then we are meeting sdg 11.2 which is providing a quality public transport within 500 meters absolutely distance now that has many other implications public transport is better for um co2 emissions for any other local emissions also because even a cng run or diesel bus is better than your petrol car i prosecute i just remember because before we just move further i remember you know you pointing out from cradle to crest that's how we measure the carbon footprint okay and you had pointed out that the diesel bus is far better than your 10 evv cars i mean you know that now there's another push that's coming up for uh for these yeah yeah i mean now the private electrical vehicles yeah yeah so how do you see this transition transformation taking place so i mean so first bit i think we have lost the whole discussion of public transport it's been hijacked by metro instead of really investing in buses you know all cities you've seen in that paper that's that's the first important point that's important because you know yeah because now you're not discussing about buses not creating as a system and just stand alone metro system is being viewed as though it's going to involve problems and it's explained that why that is i mean we witness it we haven't solved congestion we haven't solved pollution pollution and the traffic safety which is another big public health issue continues to dominate majority people who try and die in urban areas in road traffic crashes or pedestrians and motorized two wheelers so second part now in last few years we've started seeing that in the name of improving buses with the whole debate has gone into technology discussion okay we will bring electric buses and electric two wheelers and that's going to solve our complete you know pollution and emission problems so co2 emission is already there are number of studies which show that when we talk about co2 it's not about what is being emitted while the vehicle is operated it is from cradle to grave basically when the vehicle is produced yeah creating infrastructure where the resources are coming from then how the system is operated and then when you get rid of the system every system is going to have a life what kind of resources are in in available for the that process so for the reason metro system which is run on electricity in India doesn't look too good for co2 because our electricity is still coal based i think 84 percent it comes from from thermal isn't it it is lightly changed now because in last few years we've had a lot of push for renewable energies it is still about 68 to 70 percent okay so 70 percent let's say yeah so it is and unless we clean source of electricity we will have any pure to benefit that's one that's very important now we have lot of push for electric buses in India also you have fame one thing two schemes by central government but there are two issues there number one any public transport and certainly bus transport is not about only technology it's about creating a system it's about ensuring affordability if you're not answering that question that electrification just moving from petrol diesel cng to electric buses doesn't solve that problem second very interestingly some very recent papers have come out these are 22 23 publications and that is showing that in fact for electric cars so the paper compared electric cars versus petrol driven cars and diesel driven cars now electric cars have a battery so it is heavier and because of that there are two types of emissions which are happening in while the vehicle is operating one is the tailpipe tailpipe is better in electric because it is cleaner but the re suspended particulate matter which happens because of tires moving and it is throwing up the dust in the air yeah now these are heavier vehicles so these initial studies are showing that there is more RSTM okay there is kind of I would say there is already a debate in the academic circle now is it really better okay so again again you spin the wheel and come back to a new spiral yeah yes yeah yeah so I think any new technology we have to understand very carefully and so we have to understand how it's going to perform for example electric bus performance in Indian conditions which is overloaded buses we have much higher ambient temperatures in summer we don't understand it correctly so we have to tread it slowly I'm not saying don't do it but we don't have enough information to completely say okay we will just go electric in next 10 years and solve problems that is not so two two other important questions professor get them because before we wind up this show the first one is because there's very interesting point that you read us earlier but probably in the conversation we missed that and that is what people want so you know and when we are planning such such mode of transport in different cities so we do not even think about that what people want or what people want is all induced from the top or is there some parallel consciousness also developing amongst the people how does the white paper speak about that that's the first thing yeah I mean second second point is I mean maybe I'll put it just right right away is I mean what do you see as a future you know for a more sustainable urban planning stuff what could be the ways in which we do you know we just bring people to the fore and then you start the planning process in a far better legitimate participatory manner yeah so these two questions yeah so you know what people want is easy to understand because we can reflect upon our own behavior and see people around us which is happening so as I said very simply people want to move from point A to point B as fast as possible now we look at all the factors which influences our choices it seems that convenience and comfort dominates any other that's the first thing absolutely okay affordability comes very close to it we can even consider you know many countries think talk about and they do provide completely free public transport because it has before before yeah before professor let me just dwell more on that because I'm really liking it do you also not think when you you are writing the development plans what do you call the master plans in India you know take for example now the 2041 master plan speaks for TODs you know when you write master plans it should not just be limited to your land use plan but should be a quintessential section okay where are the employment going to get generated where are people going to stay so that commute is one of the quintessential aspect of the master plan do you not think that that is an essential element which is missing in the overall very very essential element and this we analyzed in another publication that you know your whole choice of mobility trip patterns etc actually starts from the way we are planning our cities how is it what are the densities what how we are planning different activities so my choice whether I'm going to walk or use any other mode first comes from there if I have to travel longer distances walking is out if we have very mixed land use patterns it does encourage walking in by city and another important issue yeah okay yeah so the two things that you know we did very detailed work in couple of small cities because we thought nobody's really walking talking about these small cities we have 400 small cities so for example we started looking at Patiala a rich city small city no dirt of resources but what about you know thinking about stg compliant mobility planning are you thinking about how you will provide public transport how it will have impact on air pollution what impact it will have on your walking trips safety of pedestrians etc so we found in the master plan of Patiala there is no discussion there is one paragraph yeah so we attempted and discussed with the town planner why not have a like whole chapter and you talk about stg compliant mobility plan becomes part of your master plan and you have a vision 20 years like master plans over 20 years yeah 20 years from now we want to achieve this and then you work backwards okay in the next five years we will do step one two three and so on so i think including mobility stg compliant mobility as part of a master plan document is the stage where we should stop definitely start and then there is other part coming which is you know your revision of Indian roads congress guidelines because next step is okay you have to do details at the road see mobility is planning but my choices are also depend on what the design of the infrastructure is do i have proper footpath do i have safe crossing facility that would also influence my choice so design also this detail design matters a lot and third then of course comes about reliability comfort convenience because if a bus is not reliable and i have a two wheeler i will end up using a two wheeler okay two wheeler may be very fuel efficient very comfortable and convenience but it has the highest risk of getting involved in traffic crashes today when we look at our data 40 to almost 45 deaths are people using two wheelers so even after wearing a helmet you still have very high risk okay and and so so two wheelers does not include the cyclists and two wheels are basically motorized two wheeler transport yeah because of speed you know twice two wheeler goes at much higher speed yeah cyclist uh of the because they got lower speed uh do not seem to have the same level of risk of course because we don't create safe infrastructure for bicycles so because of that they do face also risk so risk is really two pedestrians bicycles and motorized two wheelers okay and definitely pedestrian bicycle we can solve by providing better infrastructure so last proofs again i mean what do you think should be the way forward yeah because because you know we've seen uh the 74th amendment was like completely usurped by the special purpose vehicle model of the smart cities that didn't give any i mean i mean people in path harder to look once we have the spv it'll be project oriented we have the best minds etc etc nothing is happening in fact we have worsened from one from bad to worse honestly speaking so what do you think should be the way forward in which we make and as you rightly said i mean nowhere in the world i mean there can be an alternative to public transport you know you i mean your private cars can't just take over those spaces and these are not the sustainable ways of of moving i think for sustainable ways yeah planning for engineering for design so what i find a big block which is missing in enabling our cities to have more sustainable mobility is that we are not able to have an integrated planning or design mechanisms by how do you do that yeah so there at present i don't see any institutional setup in cities which can you know so yes master plan we talk about everything but then we start planning buses separately we start planning roads is you know it's not people are not seeing that your choices are also dependent on the way we're planning roads and safety issue is also about the way we are planning roads and how people are walking we are planning metro as a standalone system and all money is coming from the center so that little bit money that the state states have for urban transport is all being going into metro systems at the cost of creating appropriate infrastructure so i would say we have to look at institutional mechanisms which and that comes from perhaps from having your 74th amendment really centralized institutional mechanisms in a city who is responsible for creating this vision document then what mechanisms we have that we have integrated designs for buses for and one thing that we did not discuss actually in majority of Indian cities small cities mobility is being provided by what we call intermediate public transport systems or informal systems yeah that's the because there is a demand for it and they can't wish away we cannot run buses in small cities yeah so we have to include it so by inclusion this is what i mean by integrated how to have informal or IPT bus systems and metro all planned the operation level integration and design level integration okay that's the institutional mechanisms we have to create that these three level of integration should be possible metro should not be on its own and we know you've seen in that white paper we've talked we've put together the numbers even in Delhi after creating 400 kilometers of metro the leadership is 46 percent of what it was estimated projected to be and other small systems it's like two percent five percent yeah much capacity yeah coachy i mean we've seen coachy and even yeah yeah it's hardly hardly yeah so buses have to be very well i mean i would say your road based system is the basic system okay yes for long trips metro is an attractive option but if it's not integrated and all your money goes to creating a small metro system that doesn't solve i mean then i think it's a construction project it's not a public transport project we don't want a construction project we have a public transport you know we want solutions yes and the last thing again i mean where do the people figure it out in this whole process of the alternatives that we talk because you you spoke about institutional mechanism you spoke about you spoke about you know integrated but it's more about systems but where the people you know so that people are part in process of this uh entire planning paradigm i think it is this you know basically the policy planning the master plan documents unless they have very strong public participation and you know that we've always had difficulty with that because the moment we mean public it is you know this in this very heterogeneous group how are we going to integrate people who are actually walking who have no voices people using low income people who are using buses i mean today in delhi you have almost 20 still 20 people using buses but are we really doing a lot of planning for it and forget delhi look at any other city majority people are using ipts buses but the investment is going into creating these capital intensive infrastructure either metro or flyovers yeah it is also not meeting the mobility for so people's voices and mechanisms for participation of this level you know i would say the silent majority is missing right whether your 74th amendment is able to enable that i think that's what we should work for otherwise we will continue to have these you know capital intensive construction projects so great and thanks professor githam for really sparing of the time and really bringing out the white paper that you put it's it's probably in the academic circles one of the finest works i've seen in the recent past and i assume that this discussion will further kind of provoke or maybe give some play as a role of a catalyst you know maybe in some kind of churning and then we'll i mean maybe some some kind of alternatives that we that we yeah let's hope for that but i think the three four takeaways which are very important and the first one is we require more integrated system more institutionalized mechanism more people centric and not just be the construction projects but it has to be overall larger mobility package that we talk about you know for the people to commute in the cities thank you professor githam and i i hope we'll meet again yeah thank you so much thank you