How is India responding to the crisis? In March 2003, the finance minister of Delhi, delivering his budget speech, promised more money so that the capital could become, as its chief minister has put it, "the flyover city of Asia". Think more road; give vehicles more space: this grand, now globally debunked, style of mobility management is precisely the mantra planners and politicians in India swear by. This in a nation where urbanisation and its resultant heartburns - congestion and pollution - are phenomenal.

More, not merrier
Between 1951 and 2000, while the total urban population in India increased just 4.6 times, the number of vehicles bounded up 158 times. According to the planning commission, transport demand in the country has grown at 1.2 times the gross domestic product growth rate. And metropolitan cities, with just about 11 per cent of the total population, have 32 per cent of the country"s vehicles.Most of this increase is in the form of two-wheelers. According to a May 2000 article in the Indian Journal of Transport Managementin 1988 one in every 16 families in Bangalore owned a car and one in four had a two-wheeler. By 1998while there was a car per 10 familiesalmost every family owned a two-wheeler. Two-wheelers today form about 64 per cent of the fleet in Delhi and about 73 per cent in Chennai. However, in such cities, a shift towards cars is apparent. In Delhi, for instance, transport department statistics show 164 cars are registered every day, compared to 117 two-wheelers.

With the increase in number of vehicles, the rate of travel in urban centres is also shooting up. In Delhi, the average number of trips per person per day has increased from 0.49 in 1969 to 1.00 in 2001, says a household travel survey by Operations Research Group. There is also a rise in average distance traveled due to the physical expansion of the city.

Despite Indian cities having lower vehicle ownership rates than cities in developed countries, the problem of congestion is far worse here. In Kolkata, says Sudarsanam Padam, former director, Central Institute of Road Transport, Pune, the average speed during peak hours in the central business district (cbd) area is as low as 7 km/hr. Bangalore currently has average speeds of about 13-15 km/hr in its cbdbut this is expected to go down to 3-8 kms/hr in the next 15 years, says M N Reddi, the city"s Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic). According to Padam, congestion on Indian roads means a loss of Rs 300crore every year.

Public means pallid
An efficient and adequate public transport network is obviously a dire need. But when available rail and bus mass transport facilities provide only 37 million trips against a demand of 80 million trips per day by no means can such a system be called adequate or efficient. In fact, there has been a decline in the percentage share of buses from 11.1 per cent in 1951 to 1.3 per cent in 1997 for the whole country.

Dedicated city bus services are known to operate in only 17 cities and rail transit exists only in three out of 35 cities with populations in excess of a million. Even where they operate the bus service is grossly inadequate. While the bus fleet in Chennai Metropolitan Area increased just about three times between 1972-73 and 1996-97 passengers increased more than four times in the same period. In comparison between 1981 and 1997 the number of passenger cars went up by more than four times and two-wheelers by 11 times.

The failure to develop a reliable bus system has spawned various explanations: ancient crumbling vehicles; lack of skills or capacities of state transport authorities; a philosophy of loss-making and political pressure. Also, buses in India use the standard truck engine and chassis and so are not specifically designed for urban conditions.

India needs buses that are more energy efficient and less polluting, with lower cruising speeds, higher acceleration rates and lower payloads. Buses provide mobility to large numbers (see box: Any "ayes" for public transport?). In a 1998 report for the (then) Union ministry of urban development and employment (now Union ministry of urban development and poverty alleviation)rites - a government enterprise of engineers, consultants and project managers - says: "The policy for various cities with regard to public transport will be that the cities with population up to one million would be fully dependent upon buses." A 2002 World Bank report concurs: "Priority should be given to strengthen and optimise bus services and every effort should be made to divert traffic from personalised modes to the public transport system."

Captive ridership
Bicycles, cycle-rickshaws and walking - modes that could work wonders to reduce congestion and pollution levels - are associated with the poor in India. For 60-year-old Rafiqbhai, who cycles to get to any place from his home in the Jamalpur area of Ahmedabad, there is no other option. "I cannot afford to take a bus or autorickshaw on a regular basis, so I am forced to cycle. This is no easy task as there is hardly any place for people like us on the main roads or the bylanes" he says.