Hardeep S. Puri, minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, stated that future mobility is about striving towards environment-friendly, integrated, automated and personalized travel on-demand. New advancements like intelligent transportation systems, and traffic management applications are in the pipeline for enhanced mobility in major cities.
He was speaking at the 13th Urban Mobility India Conference on the theme of “Emerging Trends in Urban Mobility”. Prof. Jan Gehl, Founder and Senior Advisor, Gehl; Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, Minister Delegate for Transport, Ministry for the Ecological Transition, Government of France; Dr. Claudia Warning, Director-General GIZ; DS Mishra, Secretary, Housing and Urban Affairs attended the Conference.
Addressing the Conference, the Minister said that in the aftermath of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, India is likely to experience a behavioral change in urban mobility. This crisis also presents an opportunity to guide the recovery of urban transport towards long-term development goals, as articulated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the present crisis should be turned into an opportunity to create an ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’, and the time being ripe enough to make bold decisions and investments.
India is witnessing the arrival of a new generation of mobility discourses, which are nuanced enough to provide sustainable urban mobility. The Ministry has issued a detailed advisory, as to how the nation needs to move ahead in these testing times. It rests on three key pillars, namely, promotion of public transport system, leveraging technological advancements and penetration of NMT systems in the urban transport paradigm.
Various studies show that about 16-57% of urban commuters are pedestrian and about 30-40% of commuters use bicycles in the country depending on the size of the city. Considering this as an opportunity, elevating the priority of these modes gives travelers another private vehicle alternative, which is clean, safe, secured, particularly if it is integrated with other modes and affordable for all.
Non-motorised transport will occupy the prime, non-negotiable, position in every form of urban mobility discourse and intervention. During the Conference, Awards for innovations in Urban Transport during Covid-19 were also announced.
