Since the demand for parking is insatiable, new mobility services and mass transit must complement each other
As we celebrate hosting this year’s G-20 annual forum, our resolve to organise over 200 meetings in 50 cities across 32 different work streams spotlighting LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) may put to test the rigours of urban mobility. The congestion on roads and pressure for parking already make for a stressful experience as is evident from the frequent road rage incidents in India.
Though new technologies and business models have helped to improve transportation systems and services in the direction of a more sustainable mobility approach, it is shared mobility that has emerged as a possible answer to the rising number of vehicles. Shared mobility or shared transportation—where commuters can share resources such as vehicles, bikes, and parking space—has the potential to emerge as the most practical solution to meet a city’s urban transportation needs without unduly adding to the parking pressures. It can help cities maximise the use of public spaces and symbiotically aid ride hailing firms to generate revenue, and consequently employment.
Yet, it remains a concept well resonated but seldom seeded in our policy initiatives on the ground. Shared mobility must be principally enabled as a commercial choice rather than a regulatory one.
On its part, the Central Government has expressed a larger intent of promoting shared mobility. The enabling provisions of the ‘Cab Aggregators Guidelines’ of the Ministry of Road Transport allow for bikes, scooters, motorcycles, three wheelers, and cars to be on a single tech platform to be used throughout the day by several people for different trips.
However, hailables do not necessarily get incubated into a single aggregators’ license issued by the state government. This is due to narrow interpretations driven by local political imperatives. Only a few states have shown the progressive intent to issue a single licence to aggregate ‘Bike Taxis, Autorickshaws and Cabs’. Most, on the other hand, have not adopted this universal interpretation but instead choose to promote a multiple licensing regime, almost reminiscent of the pre-1991 license era.
This selective interpretation leads to suboptimal regulations. For instance, the ‘Bike Taxis’, which are extremely popular in Goa do not find an expression in the regulations of some of the large congested cities, despite their growing popularity despite being quick and light and best suited to avoid traffic snarls.
A larger auto or cab gets thus deployed for a single passenger leading to a bigger than necessary carbon footprint. The other aspect of alleviating parking pressure and the attendant congestion and pollution lies in the larger outlook of States towards land required to park vehicles. Most cities are still trying to fulfill the insatiable demand for parking, using up large tracts of the scarce land, even as real estate development has gone vertical.
Lessons from global experience are instructive. Globally, the governing principles of parking policy are changing. Instead of promoting unlimited supply of parking, parking demand is sought to be reduced by discouraging personal vehicle usage in congested areas. Such a move towards shared mobility is being encouraged in cities like Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Portland, etc., where fiscal disincentives have been put in place on use of personal vehicles, making public transport or a commercial hire a more lucrative financial choice. This frees up street spaces and parking lots, converting them into cycle lanes and recreational areas.
Since India faces similar challenges, it is only natural that India’s response should also resonate with action taken across the globe. According to a study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a car in India on an average is parked for over 95 per cent of the time and is driven for less than five per cent of its life. The survey concluded that on an average, a car spends 8,360 hours parked and is only driven for 400 hours in a year.
Cars or two-wheelers account for 85 per cent of parking space usage but provide for only 4-5 per cent of travel demand. In contrast, cabs account for 4-5 per cent of parking and on an average carry 15-20 times more passengers than a private car.
The study also highlighted the vast land usage committed to this ever-rising parking demand in urban areas. It estimated that the annual additional demand for parking spaces can be equivalent to as much as 471 football fields in Delhi, 100 in Chennai, 58 in Chandigarh, and 179 in Gurgaon.
The Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), has gone on record to state that provisions of parking for personal vehicles cannot be considered a matter of public good. Land is a limited resource, so there is a limit to the additional parking spaces that can be created in a city. Decades of experience in India and across the world bear testimony to the fact that the demand for parking is insatiable. New mobility services and established mass transit must complement each other to build systems that serve consumers regardless of where they live within the cities or their circumstance.
Already, for many of the millennials and Gen Z in India, the car has gone from being seen as a property asset to becoming a service that young people pay for only when they need it. It is expected that by the end of the decade, more apps, shared services, and electrification will significantly expand mobility’s scope and modes. New mobility services have the potential to carve out a meaningful role in future mobility for themselves. These are cues for policymakers to get more actively involved in envisioning these new services in the urban transportation system. One of the most powerful outcomes of shared mobility is the impact on the environment. The ability of states to garner revenues to combat the environment lies in innovative regulations. A commercial vehicle contributes substantially higher taxes, tolls and GST—a part of which needs to be channelised right to get this segment to grow. Despite the Green fund subsidies for manufacture of EVs through the FAME schemes, the current sales of electric vehicles (EV) is less than five per cent of the total vehicle sales against an ambitious target of a complete switch over for all new vehicles by 2030.
Due to a higher initial capital cost, a loan for purchasing an EV entails higher EMIs than its fossil fuelled equivalent, offsetting some of the advantage of the lower running cost. A targeted interest subvention scheme for purchase of EVs by the marginal earners of commercial vehicles would create excellent self-employment opportunities. Further, Priority Sector Lending (PSL) for green mobility can be expanded to the last mile to cover purchase loans, especially for women drivers which would enable more women to earn their livelihood with complete flexibility in working hours.
The tech platforms could also provide enhanced safety for women riders by mapping them to women drivers as a preference. The possibilities to convert this into an opportunity are endless.
However, state governments must be exhorted to bring out the attendant rules and regulations to enable the tech platforms to aggregate all vehicles without an exception—through a single licence. The road to success need not be lined with many tempting parking spaces.
