Urban Mobility Research in India

Gender-based differences in mode-choice behaviour have been significantly studied in developed countries; however, it remains underexplored in developing countries. Moreover, the use of unsustainable modes of transport has been increasing leading to further burdening the Climate Change issues. It calls for policy interventions from the transportation professionals and concerned stakeholders that would shift the mode share towards greener and sustainable modes of transport. Therefore, this study utilizes a discrete choice modelling approach to achieve the following objectives: (a) to develop a mode choice model, (b) to explore, identify, and test the impact of transport policy bundles on the modal split across men and women and (c) to test and analyse the impact of identified policy bundles across the gender-income groups. A Multinomial Logit (MNL) choice model was developed based on the utility maximization choice theory and the parameters were estimated. Nineteen policy instruments focusing on improving women ridership in public transportation were identified and tested on modal share through the developed MNL choice model. From the policy analysis done separately for male and female and across four income groups, it was inferred that certain policies demonstrated that low and lower-middle females are more likely to shift towards public transportation and NMT modes; however, the overall shift could be undesirable also if it does not target all the modes. This study would be useful to policymakers who would like to test the impact of a policy instrument or policy bundle across different gender-income groups with a good level of confidence.

Indian cities are experiencing a fall in public transport ridership due to deteriorating quality of services as expressed by passengers. There has been a growing awareness on improving public transport delivery and also to monitor its performance. Although transit agencies have developed various service performance indicators/measures, the typical key performance indicators used in India are focused on the operators’ perspectives, with limited emphasis on passenger and larger societal concerns. ASRTU and CIRT publications convey that many cities have installed or are in the process of installing ITS to improve performance of public transport. These applications generate huge datasets which could be leveraged for monitoring services from the user’s perspective which could aid in quality improvement decisions. The main objective of this paper is to understand how user-focused performance assessment of city bus services could be undertaken using ITS applications data. For this, Ahmedabad was taken as the case city and user-focused service assessment was undertaken using sample smart datasets.

Transport is central to the development of urban areas because it directly affects the economic efficiency of the cities and the well-being of inhabitants. In the context of rapid urbanization processes, increasing travel demand, growing congestion, negative environmental impacts, the large size of investments, and the impacts of transport on daily human life, it is essential to formulate policies and strategies that enable the sustainable development of the transport sector in the cities. The redesign of the urban mobility governance system has played a pivotal role in seeking to promote more equitable, desirable, economically efficient, and environmentally sustainable cities in India. Recently, the Government of India implemented the Smart Cities Mission, to address sustainable development challenges in parts of 100 cities. This paper focuses on the implementation of the Smart City Mission to fulfil a threefold purpose (a) to examine the various governance reform initiatives implemented over the past few years to determine their impact on long-term infrastructure development projects and to identify those that could not be implemented (b) to give a detailed review of Smart Cities Mission and (c) to build a stakeholder map by conducting workshops with stakeholders, to understand the relationships between local actors, public officials, Non-Governmental Organizations, and institutions involved in sustainable transport infrastructure initiatives in Bangalore and Jaipur, and their connection to the new Smart City Mission initiative and delivery.

Cities being the epicentre of economic activities should have better connectivity amongst themselves to provide additional development opportunities to the less developed cities. This study looks after assessing the existing network of multiple units (MUs) and determining whether any connectivity disparity exists within the sub-districts of National Capital Region (NCR). The study evaluates the disparity using four connectivity measures and Gini index to estimate the level of inequality in the NCR. The results show a huge disparity in the connectivity of different sub-districts to the existing network of MU trains. Baghpat sub-district was found to have relatively better connectivity to all other NCR parts, while Muzaffarnagar was the least connected sub-district. The value of the Gini index also portrayed the existing inequality in connectivity of sub-districts through MUs and the exclusion of a few sub-districts of NCR. The study identified the absence of connectivity in the southern and western part of the NCR which needs to be improved to encourage development in those areas. This study can be useful for the transit authorities of NCR to ensure measures for developing an equitable MU network for daily commuters.

With the growing trend of incorporating UN (United Nation) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in different fields of research, it has been observed that some SDGs have direct and indirect impacts on the transportation systems engineering and planning of cities. It has been evident in past studies that the transportation sector contributes to more than 70% of carbon dioxide emissions. In the Indian context, since the time of independence, several Five-Year Plans (FYPs) and transport development strategies have incorporated the targets which help in achieving sustainable development, but there has been no direct linkage of such targets with any policy instrument to date. Even though sustainable transportation strategies are mentioned in National Urban Policy Framework (NUPF) 2020 of India, incorporation of SDGs in the document is missing. There is an urgent need to study the impact of transportation on SDGs and their association with policy interventions that can lead to effective implementation of SDGs at all levels of governance. The study majorly deals with identifying UN SDGs and associated targets with direct and indirect relevance to transportation. Several UN SDG targets can be linked to sustainable transport indicators, which can further be incorporated into a policy framework. It is essential to incorporate the SDGs related to transportation in the master plans and comprehensive mobility plans to frame robust and comprehensive policy interventions for sustainable development. This paper identifies suitability of 201 sustainable transportation indicators using SMART criteria framework, reviews the Indian transport policies to understand to what extent the SDGs have been incorporated into their strategies. These indicators can be used in future studies for monitoring progress to achieve SDG targets through a comprehensive sustainable urban transport index and policy framework.

Parking has the potential to increase or reduce traffic congestion. One parking policy technique that can be utilized to maintain controlled parking, cut down on car use, and achieve desired modal split is parking pricing and regulations. Regulating parking is important to maintain the balance between the supply and demand management. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for the city authorities to understand people’s attitudes toward parking, regulations, and their awareness before formulating any policy for better long-term results. Parking duration varies based on the trip purpose, mode choice, and parking availability. In this study, using Cox regression, an attempt has been made to estimate the duration of parking by modeling different variables that would impact the decision of parking on-street or off-street. The study area was delineated based on the high parking demand in the city, for which a random sampling of 300 drivers was carried out for seven days at different hours of the day, both on-street and off-street. Results indicated that most on-street parking happens for a shorter duration while off-street parking is for longer duration. The socio-economic characteristics, trip purpose, and frequency significantly impact the parking duration. The study also highlighted the changing parking pattern due to existing enforcement in the city and its impact on their day-to-day routine before and after the pandemic scenario. In conclusion, strict parking enforcement affects the behavior of parking of short-term and long-term parkers and is a strong predictor of user attitude and behavior.

With the rapid urbanisation, demand for mobility in India is likely to witness an expeditious increase, leading to increased air pollution and energy consumption. For catering to this demand in a sustainable way, there has been a growing thrust by the GoI in recent past to switch from ICE vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs). Although, various policy efforts have been made by both central and state government for incentivising EV adoption but the growth in EV registrations are not as anticipated, except for a few states like Delhi. One of the main reasons for this lacklustre EV uptake is the absence of understanding key barriers of stakeholders involved in the process of EV adoption. The present paper is an attempt to analyse those key factors for the city of Jaipur through primary surveys, stakeholders consultation and a behaviour model. Behavioural factors are analysed through the application of SEM, which reveals that attitude, and perceived control behaviour are the key influencing variables for EV adoption in Jaipur. Also, technical, infrastructural, and financial factors are analysed using Analytical Hierarchy Process, which reveals that high upfront cost, low driving range, and inadequate charging infrastructure are major barriers in EV adoption. Based on various factors identified through surveys and stakeholder consultations, as well as the current poor status of EV adoption in the city, the paper has outlined a planning framework for efficient EV adoption in the future.

Accelerated urbanisation due to rising population has led to increasing growth of conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) mode of transport, making it a major contributor to the global carbon emissions. Road transport accounts for ~74% of transport-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (IEA, 2020). India’s nationally determined commitments could be accelerated by switching to electric vehicles. Several states have approved their specific electric vehicle (EV) policies which vary viz-a-viz policy interventions. At this stage, cities need to brace themselves for acting as a lighthouse of EV adoption. Lucknow, being the capital of the state as well as having been identified as one of the model EV city under Uttar Pradesh (UP) EV policy, has been selected as the study area for this study. As per vahan dashboard, a total of 25,77,750 vehicles were registered in Lucknow till March 2022 out of which only 34,704 were EVs. This shows low penetration of EVs, approximately 1.35% of total vehicles registered in Lucknow. A mix methodological approach has been used to assess EV readiness in terms of availability of EV infrastructure, policy interventions and penetration of EVs in the study area. A set of 15 indicators were framed based on secondary research and these indicators included criterion from planning, policy, technological and infrastructure interventions, comprising of qualitative and quantitative data. Each indicator was given equal scoring and benchmarking was done based on the best-performing city within Indian context. A Google form-based pilot survey was conducted for the stakeholders [end-users, Think Tanks, State/city government officials, Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)] to assess the importance of factors involved in EV readiness.

The rapid expansion of urban delivery vehicles in India as a result of rising freight demand will have a significant detrimental effect on the environment in the years ahead. To accomplish the objectives of rapid decarbonization, particularly from freight, there is a growing need to rely on recent technological advances in delivery systems, where electrification is critical. In the last 10 years, the Government of India has developed a lot of incentives for EVs. However, despite all these efforts, the market for EVs in India hasn’t picked up as expected, particularly in the urban freight segment. Through an empirical analysis in the city of Delhi, the present paper attempts to emphasize the preferences and constraints confronting urban freight operators in the adoption of EVs in their delivery operations. To calculate the weights of various barriers to EV adoption and potential solutions, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used. According to the study, EV adoption is hampered by a lack of universal charging infrastructure, short ranges, and restricted payload capacity, which prevents EVs from being widely used in the urban freight sector.

Women in developing countries face a number of constraints that limit their ability to travel between home and work like income and job constraints, domestic and family responsibilities, and labour market constraint travel patterns of working women. From gender-oriented transport issue, women face inequities in terms of intra-household allocation of transport tasks and resources. COVID -19 pandemic has also severely impacted mobility levels of urban context across the globe. Very limited research has been carried out to assess the impact of pandemic on women’s mobility levels. This paper is one such attempt to assess the mobility patterns of women before COVID-19 and during COVID-19 in case city—Delhi. It is observed from this study that mobility characteristics of trip performed by women were significantly different pre as well as throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Factor analysis technique used for analysing the parameters having an impact on mode choice pre and during the pandemic. Major shift from public transportation to private transportation and nonmotorised modes was observed. Women prioritised pandemic-related concerns over other concerns when selecting a mode for their commute during COVID-19 pandemic. Gender, car/vehicle ownership, occupation, distance travelled, trip purpose, and pandemic-related concerned aspects were observed as underlying factors of mode choice during COVID-19.

Private transportation modes such as motorized two-wheelers and cars constitute more than 80% of the vehicle composition across most Indian cities. The primary reasons for their popularity include increased purchasing power, easy navigation capability through city traffic, low purchase and maintenance cost, and suitability to heterogeneous traffic conditions. Currently, urban mobility policies that regulate motorized two-wheelers in India are fragmented and often locally applicable. The situation is worse in second-tier Indian cities, where motorized two-wheeler regulation policies are practically invisible. There lies a need for a well-structured regulatory policy vision to achieve sustainable motorized two-wheeler usage in India. Any robust policy vision framework must address the individual motorized two-wheeler usage behaviour at a city level and consider the visible variability of motorized two-wheeler usage behaviour across different tiers of cities. Hence, another important question arises, along with a need to study the effects of individual characteristics on motorized two-wheeler usage behaviour. Is there any variability in motorized two-wheeler usage characteristics across different tiers of Indian cities? This study aims to investigate the effect of individual and city tier characteristics on motorized two-wheeler usage behaviour through a multilevel logistic modelling approach. The city tiers are demarcated using k-means clustering on city-level variables. The multilevel model, along with exploring the relationship between dependent and independent variables at the individual (Level-1) and city level (Level-2), also quantifies the variation between different city tiers. The results are expected to be critical in framing effective urban mobility policies on sustainable and resilient motorized two-wheeler usage across Indian cities.

This paper presents a case study of Faridabad, India, to investigate the role of urban planning in ensuring equitable accessibility to public facilities. The study focuses on the concept of Equitable Accessibility, which refers to providing an unbiased level of transit service to vulnerable populations, such as economically weaker sections, senior citizens and working women. The study utilizes GIS-based spatial analysis, and an analysis of street videos to measure the level of service of street infrastructure, and accessibility to public facilities, such as schools, hospitals and parks. The study also evaluates the existing urban planning policies to determine their effectiveness in promoting equitable access. The analysis reveals that degraded street infrastructure and inadequate pedestrian facilities lead to difficulties in reaching destinations and higher travel time, distances, cost and unsafety, particularly for vulnerable populations who are dependent on walking, cycling and public transportation. The study identifies specific routes that are highly inaccessible due to poor infrastructure quality and are exposed to the majority of vulnerable people. A GIS assessment model is built to calculate the equitable routes for walking and driving to different public facilities. The findings argue that urban planning can play a crucial role in promoting equity and reducing social exclusion by incorporating accessibility considerations into decision-making and ensuring that public facilities are located in areas that are accessible to all residents.

Women are subjected to physical aggression, sexual harassment, and other sorts of unpleasant behaviour while travelling on public transport. This is not only morally repugnant, but it also has economic and societal consequences, as well as worsening other forms of inequality. Since women's safety on public transportation is a worldwide issue, this study focuses on the issue in India, considering Ahmedabad as a case study. This study intends to assess the safety of women on public buses in Ahmedabad, specifically the Amdavad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) and Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). The study further explores factors that influence women’s perception of safety. To gain a better understanding of the issue, 482 surveys were conducted at various locations across the city to capture the perceptions of safety, bus usage, and other miscellaneous aspects from women of different occupational backgrounds and locations in Ahmedabad. The acquired primary data on women’s safety perception was analysed using relevant research tools such as Importance Satisfaction Analysis and Factor Analysis. These results imply that travel experience and the condition of physical infrastructure can influence the overall safety perception of women. It is also found that occupation, location, and the type of bus service (AMTS/BRTS) also lead to a change in the perception of safety. The study further investigated the mismatch between the women’s expectations and the local authorities’ (public transport and police) initiatives to provide a safer environment.

There has been an increase in the urban population coupled with economic opportunities which have motorized and privatized travel patterns. Private motorized vehicles are given priority right of way, which has made pedestrians the most vulnerable set of road users. The policies governing walkability in Indian cities do not recommend grade-separated foot over bridges (FOBs) because the shortest direct route at crossings must be given to pedestrians. The current study looks at mobility parameters and the sociological perspective of pedestrians for utilization of FOBs in Delhi and suggests improvements for conducive pedestrian movement. It is found that in Delhi, 23% of people walk to work as compared to 3% of work trips by cars/vans/jeeps and 13% in scooters/motorcycles/mopeds yet infrastructure does not favour pedestrians. The four indicators selected were comfort, accessibility, security, and connectivity. Using the indicators, the locations studied were FOBs at Azadpur Chowk, IIT Gate and ITO. The ITO FOB scored the maximum but lacks accessibility for all users. From the survey, it was observed pedestrians crossing twice a day prefer crossing at grade and the younger population between 21 and 30 years were found to use the FOBs more compared to other age groups. For easy access, escalators are a must for pedestrians irrespective of their gender. Based on observations at the site and primary survey, improvements for mid-block crossings at IIT Gate and ITO and intersection crossing at Azadpur Chowk were recommended to propose better accessible and user-friendly pedestrian crossing facilities.

Bengaluru Metro also called “Namma Metro” have been in operation since 2010 and currently operates on a 56 km network length. At present, there are 51 metro stations and 380,000 daily metro riders. Metro is one of the key mass rapid transit systems (MRTS) in the city, thus, it is vital to study and understand factors influencing its usage from the passenger’s perspective. This study focuses on understanding the factors that impact the service quality satisfaction and commuters’ intention to continue using the metro services in Bengaluru city. Factor analysis followed by regression modeling is done based on the perception of 700 metro passengers. The study extracted 35 indicators classified into seven factors using principal component analysis. The identified factors are named based on the traits of the variables such as passenger ease (PE), overall service quality satisfaction and loyalty intention (SQLI), smooth transition (ST), Metro operation and safety (MOS), anxiety(A), amenities (AMT) and service available (SA). The developed model indicates ‘Metro operation and safety (MOS) along with passenger ease (PE)’ to be the most influential while ‘anxiety (A)’ to have a negative impact on the overall service quality satisfaction and loyalty intention (SQLI) of Bengaluru Metro. The findings of this study will enable authorities to understand service gaps in the existing metro rail transit and address them to improve the overall attractiveness of the metro services to commuters. Further, the model developed through this study can be used for carrying out service quality assessments of other metro systems in India.

In recent years, the metro rail system has experienced significant growth in major metropolitan areas and this growth is anticipated to continue in India. Land use, accessibility, travel behaviour, walkability, and density are all favourably impacted by the metro. Contrarily, if metro access areas are left unplanned, it could result in clogged streets, poor accessibility, and disorganized urban changes in the vicinity of transit hubs. For regulated urban development, better accessibility, greater use of public transportation, and place-making, metro station areas must be improved. This creates a pressing necessity to assess the current transportation infrastructures and urban built form within the area of influence of metro stations. In order to improve sustainable urban mobility, the current study focuses on analysing the attributes which influence metro commuters to walk in station access areas. Accordingly, Saket and Vishwavidyalaya are chosen as two candidate stations on the Delhi Metro Yellow line. The study's objective is to evaluate metro access areas and pinpoint the attributes that need to be improved so that all commuters can easily walk and traverse through the city. Importance-Satisfaction Analysis (ISA) is the methodological approach used. A primary survey was carried out using a well-structured questionnaire of 340 participants comprising metro commuters. The results showed that some areas need immediate interventions, including physical infrastructure, public amenities, safety and security, and general ambience. The study will help planners and policymakers learn about the problems with first mile connectivity and create safe and inclusive access area plans.

The heterogeneity of traffic is the key factor affecting speed, travel time and convenience of road users. Motorized three-wheelers being prominent Para-transit options, provides mobility to millions of people, best feasible for providing door-to-door service in metropolitan regions and facilitate flexible passenger transportation. It does not necessarily follow fixed routes and schedules, as their performance and operational characteristics differ from cars, but remains largely unorganized. In traffic streams at different roadway infrastructures, presence of other class vehicles creates significant impediments to Motorized three-wheeler’s progress. The three-wheeler delay considered in this study is the time taken to travel from entry point to exit point during normal traffic flow conditions minus time taken during free flow conditions. This study develops the delay models with an average delay of three-wheelers at roundabouts as the dependent variable and several independent variables selected after going through statistical checks. The variables considered in the delay modelling are circulating flow, entry flow, roundabout diameter, weaving length, entry width, and length of non-weaving section, circulating lanes, roadside commercial activity, percentage of motorized three-wheelers, and percentage of heavy motorized vehicles. Multilinear regression and stepwise regression analysis is carried out to fit and validate the proposed delay models.

The majority of vehicles composition in India are Motorized Two Wheelers (MTW) as they are relatively economical to own and operate and faster than other modes of transportation in congested zones. The MTW shows unique characteristics due to its different physical and dynamic features. Due to this unique operational quality, the service quality experience by MTW riders is quite different from other modes of transport. The present research tries to predict the level of service experienced by MTW at signalized intersections using the random forest method, whereas the sensitivity analysis was done using Shapley Additive exPlanation (SHAP) to interpret the influence of input variables over model output. In this research work a total of 11 signalized intersections are considered, of which 5 are four-legged intersections and 6 are three-legged intersections. Significant variables are found by using Spearman correlation analysis. Among all the variables, delay, peak hour traffic volume, obstruction due to visibility, obstruction due to parking vehicles, surrounding commercial density, presence of heavy vehicles, and approach width are found to be significant. SHAP analysis was performed to evaluate the important features affecting the MTW level of service at the signalized intersections.

In nature, Indian traffic has a heterogeneous composition, and its management requires a unique solution to its problems. India, a developing country that has undergone rapid urbanization in recent years, has shown strong growth in the transportation demand in urban areas. Urbanization has led to massive growth in burgeoning Indian cities, with it arises significant freight transportation challenges. Current Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) (2016) and Indo-HCM (2017) provides methods for rating the performance analysis of traffic facilities in terms of Level of Service (LOS), by yielding a single LOS value for all users in traffic stream. However, trucks being larger in physical dimensions and unique operating characteristics, which leads to truck drivers to perceive the roadway conditions differently than users of other vehicles modes. Data was collected from Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad and Ernakulam out-skirt city location where significant truck traffic is found. In this regards, present study focuses on truck driver perception at signalized intersection service level. The method considers a wide spectrum of roadway geometric conditions, traffic composition, and conglomerative elements. It was ensured that a wide range of diversity in each parameter was covered in the selected data. Ordered logit model is proposed for Truck-LOS modeling with pseudo R² value obtained 0.847.

People often come in groups rather than individuals in public places. Automatic visual group detection could help in understanding the group patterns in such scenarios. Researchers have proposed various approaches to identify group patterns based on trajectories extracted from video. However, these pixel trajectories are used without considering perspective projection which results in erroneous data. Placing the camera at a higher point resulting in a top-down or bird’s eye view is often used as an alternative method to circumvent this problem. However, this may not be possible in all real-life scenarios. Thus, we propose an approach for developing simple group detection models based on real-world trajectories by applying projection transformation on the pixel-based trajectories, which can be applied to the data collected using low-mounted cameras. It was found that parameters like average distance between two pedestrians, average angle between their direction of motion for a specified time window is more evenly distributed while using pixel-based location rather than their real counterparts. It is observed that the model performance is improved with the increased time window. Also, simplistic models with real-world trajectories were able to achieve over 90% accuracy.

This paper demonstrates a novel methodology for the preliminary examination of pedestrian accident patterns in an urban area. For designing a pedestrian-friendly city, there is a need to understand the accident hotspots and the infrastructure issues that can be resolved by redesigning the streets, roads, and intersections. It is essential to examine all accident hotspots and identify patterns of accidents to plan preventive activities. The paper presents the temporal and spatial analysis results of pedestrian accidents/casualties in the Greater Chennai Corporation area in the period 2017–2021 year. To identify locations with high pedestrian crash density, Kernel methods were applied in Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

Rapid urbanization and rising income per capita have fueled transportation growth in emerging countries. Transportation contributes nearly 10% of India's GHG emissions. This study provides the latest North Indian transportation emission inventory for six compounds from three vehicle modes using five fuels for 2010–2020. For roadways, emission inventory is constructed using Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) bottom-up approach, whereas IPCC's top-down emissions approach is utilized for railways and airways. Energy production back calculations are used to estimate electric vehicle emissions. North Indian transportation emitted 39 Tg of CO₂ in 2010 and 67.6 Tg in 2020, at 6% Compound Average Growth Rate (CAGR). Railways contributed 1.1% and airways 3.6% of total CO₂ emissions, while roads contributed 95.2%. HDV and LCV emit the most CO₂, CO, and NO_x, while 4W’s and 2W’s emit the most CH₄ and NMVOC. CNG vehicles emit the least CO₂, while diesel vehicles emit the most. EVs emit 148.1 Gg of CO₂ in 2020, a −13% CAGR. Electric locomotives replaced diesel, but non-renewable resources generate most electricity, so railway emissions remain high. Infant > children > adult was the order of intake fraction discovery. The inventory suggests North Indian transportation emission control strategies.