Why making Indians give up cars may not be that difficult

More than 80% of people in cities would prefer to take public transport instead of using their personal vehicles if there is robust and affordable first- and last-mile connectivity, a study by a major taxi aggregator found.

The report, ‘Ease of Moving Index’, by Ola Mobility Institute comes at a time when governments have started focusing on shifting people to public transport to reduce urban congestion and deteriorating ambient air quality across cities in India.

Among the metros, Kolkata got the maximum score on mobility parameters followed by Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai. With its established and affordable public transit system, Kolkata expectedly topped the rankings. Delhi, which is perceived as a ‘car-centric’ city, had the best feedback for road quality and availability of parking spaces.


In the second category, of ‘booming cities’, Patna outshined others, followed by Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Jaipur, Indore and Kochi. Bhubaneswar got the top score in the third category of ‘promising cities’, followed by Kohima, Vijayawada, Mysuru, Jammu, Nanded and Jabalpur.

Releasing the report on Thursday, Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari said the government wants to put a brake on huge increase in the private vehicles segment. He said the number of people hailing taxis daily is projected to increase three-fold in the next 3-4 years from 35 lakh today.

According to the report, which is based on direct feedback from 43,000 respondents across 20 cities, more than 60% of people surveyed said they use public transport. But a telling finding was that six out of every 10 non-users said they were willing to shift to public transport provided its coverage, first and last-mile connectivity, frequency, and comfort were improved.

“Today, almost 70% of the public transport users rely on cabs, autos, and non-motorised tranaport to access buses, metros, etc. Integrating intermediate public transport (IPT) with modes of public transit through offline and online multimodal terminals and fare integration, can augment public transport usage in India,” the report said.

Respondents said that IPT modes, which include taxis, three-wheelers and e-rickshaws, must be afforadble, easily available and comfortable.

More than one-third of the respondents, who admitted using public transport, said they had no other choice and 21% said it was affordable. The study also found safety as one of the major concerns while making the choice to adopt any mode of public transport. In an endorsement of green technology, nearly 75% of respondents believed electric vehicles have the potential to replace conventional vehicles by 2030.

“We are taking a number of steps to address the concern of safety. All new transport vehicles will have to install the vehicle tracking devices and emergency alert buttons from January 1. We have advised states to take the help of the device suppliers till they put in place their own control and command centre,” a transport ministry official said.

Interestingly, the study by the Ola institute claims that 30% of private car owners are willing to put up their vehicle for hire and another 50% expressed willingness to explore this option, if there was a policy in place. Earlier a similar idea pushed by Uber to allow private vehicles to transport passengers in the guise of shared mobility was turned down by the government citing regulatory issues.