Inadequate public transport forces dependence on pvt vehicles in India: Experts

Startups like Vogo and Bounce have seen a surge in demand for their two-wheeler shared services in cities like Bengaluru that beat 414 other cities across 57 countries to win the title of having the worst traffic in 2019

Rapido, a mobility startup, on Wednesday launched two-wheeler motorcycle rental services across six cities in the country, including Bengaluru, that allows continuity of services for its growing number of users in urban centres.

Representational image. (HT Archive)

The launch indicates how startups are cashing in on the increased demand for private vehicles as the preferred choice for commuting in the face of a steady decline of public transportation services usage for reasons that include time, poor connectivity and fears of contracting Covid-19, which remains as potent a threat in urban centres as it was a year before.

With fares ranging from ₹99 for 10km to ₹599 for 60km, the services offered are not just cheaper than other available commute options, including four-wheeler cab aggregators, but are also a more effective mode of transport in congested and overcrowded urban centres where two-wheelers are preferred to easily navigate traffic snarls, narrow roads and save time among other advantages.

The services were launched in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Jaipur.

“In the last few months, we have noticed a rising need for multi-stop, affordable and easily accessible rides among customers, especially our high usage customers. With Rapido Rental, we aim to address the need of such users who have a use case of multi-point travel,” Aravind Sanka, co-founder, Rapido, said in a statement.

Other startups like Vogo and Bounce have also seen a surge in demand for their two-wheeler shared services in cities like Bengaluru that beat 414 other cities across 57 countries to win the title of having the worst traffic globally in 2019.

The list by Tom Tom, a Netherlands-based global provider of navigation, listed Mumbai, Pune and New Delhi as the other Indian cities who made it to the top 10 of the list in 2019.

A 2020 report by Tom Tom to gauge the return of congestion in the post-pandemic world, pointed out that road traffic in India’s four biggest cities--Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Pune--have crawled back to pre-pandemic levels after almost a year of lockdown.

Delays in completion of key mass-transit projects like Metro, suburban rail and shortcomings in reviving fledgling public buses are weighing in on the rapidly shifting dynamics of city commutes across the country. A process that has hastened since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

V.Ravichandar, a Bengaluru-based urban infrastructure expert, said that authorities can soften the impact of delays in construction like that of the Metro by augmenting bus services as a viable transport option.

“Emphasis on public transportation whether it be through bus fleet augmentation or expediting the Metro construction overall has taken a back seat, leaving the space for private cars which leads to traffic jams and associated problems,” he said.

In a city like Bengaluru that is situated over 820 sqkm, the Metro, which accounts for the highest public expenditure, barely transports 500,000 of the total 10 million population at the peak of its usage. Most of the city’s IT corridors like Whitefield, Outer Ring Road and Electronic City are yet to be connected by Metro, forcing professionals in India’s IT capital to pursue, what is possibly, an irreversible trend of dependence on private vehicles.

The other problem experts have often raised is the lack of a coordinated approach and strategy to connect or intertwine different modes of transport to make it more transition.

Dependence on private vehicles has also given a free hand to authorities to appropriate tree-felling to widen roads, albeit in pockets, that shifts bottlenecks rarely addressing the real problems faced by millions living in unplanned and rapidly growing urban centres across the country.

The rapid erosion of green cover, heightened construction activity to house the large number of migrant workers among others and increasing number of private vehicles on city roads have also contributed to deteriorating quality of life due to pollution.

While electric mobility has seen increased adoption, it does not have the answer to physical vehicles on the road, lack of parking spaces and other problems.