E-Paper
Future of India’s city transport to be invented in Pune’s urban mobility lab
Pune selected by Niti Aayog to be India’s first ‘lighthouse’ city
Pune has been selected as India's first ‘lighthouse city’ under the Niti Aayog and Rocky Mountain institute’s (RMI) grand challenge to take urban mobility to a new dimension.
India’s first lighthouse city will host an urban mobility laboratory, which will work to create early examples of new, innovative mobility solutions in cities to enable the country’s transition to a better platform of national mobility.
The announcement was made by Anil Srivastava, director general (DG), and advisor (infrastructure connectivity), Niti Aayog, government of India, on Monday.
Srivastava said, “I am confident that the Pune urban lab will be a thought-making experiment for the new mobility for Pune, India, and potentially across the world. The entire country will be looking forward to the benchmark Pune sets.”
He added, “We need to redefine the policy framework. We need to break the silos between different government departments. And then an integrated set of solutions must be put into place.”
Ashish Kumar Singh, principal secretary, (Transport & Ports), home department, Maharashtra, said, “The government of Maharashtra is playing a leading role in the transition to shared, connected, and electric mobility. It is our consistent endeavour to improve access, affordability, congestion, pollution, and safety. I look forward to the outcomes of the Pune urban mobility lab, and to seeing how solutions can be scaled up across the state.”
Eight leading solution providers from across India and four multi-stakeholder working groups have been confirmed as participants to develop innovative mobility solutions for Pune through the urban mobility laboratory.
The eight solution providers are Ashok Leyland, Lithium Urban Technologies, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ola Cabs, Ridlr, Sun Mobility, Tata Motors, and Transit Intelligence.
Kunal Kumar, mission director (Smart Cities), ministry of housing and urban affairs and former PMC commissioner, said, “A tremendous opportunity for Pune to get everyone who works on transport together. We need to look at solutions that will change the tide to help the city show the way for the rest of the country. We at the Central Government will certainly help to scale. Pune can show the way to the rest of the country.”
Assuring complete cooperation to concerned agencies, Pune mayor Mukta Tilak said, “We need to work more towards boosting mobility facilities in the city and at the same time encouraging citizens to use public transport.”
