[sustran] India Expert Committee on estimating investment -----Meeting on Urban Transportation

[Vinay Baindur]

High Powered Expert Committee  Meeting on Urban Transportation

http://www.niua.org/upcoming%20seminars/hpec/hpec_transport/hpec_transport.htm

*T*he High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC) on estimating investment
requirements in urban infrastructure met on January 20, 2009. Focus of this
meeting was on urban transportation. It was chaired by Dr. Isher Ahluwalia.
Mr. Anil Baijal, Former Secretary (UD) and Mr. O.P.Agarwal, Executive
Director, IL&FS, were special invitees to this meeting. Mr. O.P.Agarwal made
a presentation on, "Investments needed for Sustainable Urban Transportation
in India". He brought out various issues, initiatives taken and possible
approaches for improved urban transportation system in India. The focus of
the National Urban Transport Policy is moving people and not vehicles. This
will require that public transport should be more attractive to use. Working
Group Report on Urban Transport for XIth Five Year Plan has estimated
investment requirement of Rs. 1,32,50,00 crore (including modern buses).
Challenge for improved bus transport is to provide good quality service at
an affordable price. It is important to evaluate alternative public
transport technologies in the context of city characteristics. The public
transport options vary between low cost buses to high cost rail metros. He
said that several initiatives have been taken in India:

   -

   Many cities have prepared Comprehensive Mobility Plans;
   -

   15 cities have planned to introduce modern bus services;
   -

   Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) is coming up in 11 cities;
   -

   Six City Planning new metro rail systems; and
   -

   Unified Metropolitan Transport Authorities have been set up in two
   cities.

There is need for undertaking a major capacity building program in the
sector.

Moreover, the present initiatives have overlooked that simple low cost
traffic improvement measures can improve the traffic situation. In addition,
improvement or modernization of the existing bus systems as well as improved
facilities for pedestrian and cyclists are missing. He added that bus
systems can be improved through provision of better buses, improved
information system and prioritization of bus flows through dedicated bus
lane. The key message from the review of urban transport sector in India is
that the proposed approach has to be comprehensive and serve a range of
human needs. Finally, urban transport planning is more an art than science.
There was extensive discussion on the subject after the presentation.
Chairperson said that the presentation and discussions will help HPEC in
addressing the issues of urban transport.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20090131/a4c0dd56/attachment.html