Transport and Mobility in Small Towns: What do we know (and don’t)
/Transport and Mobility in Small Towns: What do we know (and don’t)
For long, most studies and surveys concerning public transport in India have been limited to larger metro cities. The kind of information available about these cities is vast: we know about the kind of trips people make; why they make those trips; the number of road accidents; the percentage share of public transport versus private transport; how affordable transport is and other socially important aspects. Transportation in bigger cities is a well-researched topic, but a corresponding focus is not put on smaller cities.
Gaps in Data Collection
For a country as populous and diverse as India, the government is the only entity that can collect comprehensive data about the people. While large data collection drives such as Census and NSSO include all urban and rural areas as part of their mandates, most others do not. For example, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways only publishes data regarding road safety in cities over 10 lakh of population. Even city-level data generation and collection through technologies is limited to larger cities because of the financial capacity of these cities to undertake such activities.
This gap continues when one looks at other allied areas of enquiry; the National Air Quality Index dashboard provides information for only the relatively bigger cities from selected states. Similarly, the data on place of occurrence for road accidents or the vehicle involved is available only for about 50 Indian cities, leaving out even some of the capital cities.
Gaps in Analysis
Data collected by private organisations fills some of the knowledge gap. But they are often in variance with each other, making it difficult to draw insights. For example, a study by Council on Energy, Environment and Water finds that smaller cities have a greater reliance on cycling and lesser dependency on buses and Intermediate Public Transport (IPT), while a study by The Energy and Resources Institute finds that smaller cities have larger usage of IPT and buses, and bigger cities show relatively more dependence on cycling. Other than these, both studies agree that smaller cities have greater usage of private motorised transport, especially two-wheelers.
The gap in analysis is further deepened by the varied population-based categorisations of cities used in studies, which makes it difficult to get definite evidence for mobility patterns. In such scenarios, decisions about urban mobility tend to rely on larger population brackets. A town with 2 lakh of population has very different transport related concerns as well as travel demand than a city with 10 lakh people, even though both can be considered ‘smaller cities’.
In addition to this, these categories do not pay attention to the varied topographical features and developmental stages of our cities. Shimla in Himachal Pradesh and Silchar in Assam have similar populations - 1,69,578 and 1,72,830 respectively - but the lived realities are widely different. We need to move beyond the criteria of population to focus on various other variables as well when looking for solutions to our urban problems.
Gaps in Policy Formulation
Transport-related policies and missions have continued to shape the growth and management of urban transport in the country. Most of these have focused on the larger transport landscape nationally or on bigger cities specifically, with only some recognition for the needs of small city transportation (See the infographic on the right for a summary)
A study by Indian Institute for Human Settlements shows that 75% of the investment under JnNURM was for 65 cities under Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) components, with the remaining 25% being used for 640 cities under Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT), and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP).
Under JnNURM, bigger cities had more per capita investment than smaller cities. Also, while JnNURM covered the entire population of the million plus cities, a little more than half of the population in class I cities, and less than half of the people in classes II, III, IV cities were covered. None in classes V and VI cities were covered under JnNURM (See the graph below). In other words, JnNURM served higher population shares of urban dwellers in bigger cities than in smaller cities.
(Source: Urban India 2011: Evidence, IIHS)
Even the more recent Smart Cities Mission discriminates against smaller cities by its design. The transport component of the Mission focuses on three segments - Smart Parking, Intelligent Traffic Management, and Integrated Multi Modal Transport. These require high capital investments and technical expertise, putting smaller cities with limited resources at a disadvantage. AMRUT, another urban renewal mission, includes all cities over 1 lakh population, but not many cities and states have opted for urban transport projects in their Annual Action Plans. Many of those who are implementing projects also focus on non-motorised transport or multi level car parkings. NMT is an important step towards achieving more eco-friendly urban spaces, but cities also require sustainable and affordable motorised public transport for longer distances and to guard against an increase in private transportation modes.
The National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) 2014 addresses some of these concerns. It comes as an improvement on NUTP 2006, which did not explicitly speak about smaller cities. NUTP 2014 centres public transport in smaller and medium cities around ‘paratransit modes’ - tempos and mini-buses - and recommends their upgradation to make them more environmentally friendly and accessible. The policy also recommends increased regional and sub-urban connectivity to serve the towns around bigger cities as well. While expanded in its ambit, NUTP 2014 suffers from the same limitations as most policy documents; it offers recommendations but not many actionable points, leaving the actual implementation to the state governments.
Context Specific Mobility Solutios
National transport policies and missions create opportunities for solutions and help divert much needed investments for building infrastructure. But they require robust data to base their mandates on, so that the policy decisions can be comprehensive and do not lead to more problems. The decisions that the government takes needs to be evidence-based and actionable to address the demands of smaller cities. But with the data gap that exists about transportation in the smaller cities, the policies that get created get based on experiences of larger cities.
Learnings and insights from bigger cities are routinely applied to smaller cities. For example, the recent central government plan for introducing light metros in tier 2 and tier 3 cities seeks to develop transport infrastructure in medium and smaller cities in the lines of bigger cities without taking into account the actual needs of the cities. The original version of Metro Neo system which is being suggested for replication in cities with population below 10 lakhs is being implemented in the city of Nashik which has a population of 14 lakhs. Other international cities where similar technology is being used include Montreal, Chile, Paris, Mexico among others. Use of any technology system needs to be carefully matched with its context such as population, travel demand, weather conditions among others. Prescribing across the board solutions for all cities is alarming given the diversity in contexts of these cities - 58% of India’s urban population lives in 7,882 urban centres with populations between 50 thousand and 10 lakhs.
The policies need to solve the problems of smaller towns, where transport is still neglected instead of concentrating only on the bigger, more economically important urban centres. While electric vehicle charging stations are being installed in the metropolitan cities, most smaller cities still do not have a public bus system; only 63 out of 458 Indian cities with a population more than 1 lakh have a formal city bus system. Smaller cities are either serviced by state level bus corporations or they lack bus systems entirely.
Given the lack of data and information on mobility in small cities, it is important that emphasis is accorded to generating more data about smaller cities. While the government agencies must include more urban areas in their data collection ambits, we must also encourage diverse groups to do the same. Information from diverse origins helps us get a more complete picture of the scenarios we want to capture. So while governments and bigger private entities will be able to get a macro-level viewing of transportation, smaller groups and individuals will be able to tell us the qualitatively lived experience of using the transportation. This will help us create policies which are user-centric and demand driven and not centred around supply of infrastructure.
Thumbnail Image by Atharva Tulsi on Unsplash
This piece is part of the Small City Mobility Series of the Nagrikal. Nagrikal is a platform for citizens from small cities to share their experiences so that they be channeled into policies.
Articles in the Small City Mobility Series
