• Traffic congestion has increased dramatically in India. Congestion and the associated slow urban mobility can have a huge adverse impact on both the quality of life and the economy.

Urban mobility in India :-

• Mobility is slow in most Indian cities. It is slow even outside the peak hours of traffic, and in both large and small cities.
• India’s mean travel speed across cities is just 24.4 km per hour, much slower than the mean travel speed of 38.5 km per hour in metropolitan cities in the US. There are also big differences in mobility across cities in India
• The multi-purpose nature of urban transport also impacts urban mobility in India. Roads in cities are multi-purpose public goods, used by various classes of motorized and non-motorized vehicles to travel and park, as well as a wide variety of other users such as street-sellers, children playing and animals.
• Non-transportation uses of the roadway do slow down motorized vehicles.
• Travel speed starts declining early in the morning and recovers late in the evening.
• Longer trips are faster. Trips further away from the city centre are also faster.
• Congestion really matters close to the city centre, especially in the big cities.
• Weather characteristics such as rain, humidity, heat, and more windy conditions are associated with higher travel speeds.

Reasons for slow urban mobility in India:-

• Slow urban mobility in India is primarily due to cities being slow all the time, rather than congested at peak hours.
• However, congestion is not a nationwide problem. It is concentrated near the centre of the largest Indian cities. Given their importance to the Indian economy, these areas with the highest levels of congestion, such as the city centres of Kolkata and Bengaluru, should be the focus of policy efforts to alleviate congestion.
• Indian cities do not experience the familiar twin peak congestion pattern experienced in the UK and the US, due to morning and evening commutes. There is almost no distinct morning peak instead, there is a slow buildup of congestion that often persists until late into the evening. These unique patterns are consistent with Indian roads being multi-purpose public goods that serve a wide variety of use other than motorized transport that slow down travel.

Why specific policies are required :-

• Standard policy recommendations such as congestion pricing or other types of travel restrictions may do little to improve mobility. Instead, potentially costly travel infrastructure investments may be the only way to improve uncongested mobility.
• Better uncongested mobility generally correlates with the process of faster economic growth.
• More primary roads and regular grid patterns are associated with faster urban mobility.
• Investment needed to make roads to handle any weather conditions. Investment in urban transport also plays an important role in influencing property prices.
• Land value taxes have huge potential to scale up urban mobility as well as maximize finance for development.
• People in cities are more productive, more innovative, and have higher skills. In other words, apart from increased personal mobility, there is also need to anticipate faster urbanisation as economic growth accelerates.