Application of Indicators in Transport Planning: Insight from India

Abstract

In India, transport sector consumes nearly 9% of the total oil demand contributing to approximately 7.5% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Accounting for fuel consumption and emissions throughout lifecycle of transport infrastructure, services and vehicles will further expedite the numbers. National urban transport policy (NUTP) emphasize on take-up of strategies and policies to encourage the use of non-motorized transport and public transport in Indian cities. Appropriate adaptation of NUTP shall help cities in reducing environmental impacts of transport sector. This requires appropriate planning and management of infrastructure and services that reduce impacts both in short and long term. The approach relies on the use of indicators to guide the process of defining strategies and monitoring of the progress made. In past two decades, urban transport in India has seen transition from provision of infrastructure to provision of services. Various plans and studies have been taken up to support urban local bodies. The chapter studies the transition in urban transport policies, approaches for planning urban transport and application of indicators in achieving the laid agenda in past two decades in India. In India, mobility planning is divided into three phases—prior to the issue of NUTP in 2006, after the launch of JnNURM (2006–2014), and after the revised toolkit (R-toolkit) for preparing Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) was issued (beyond 2014). R-toolkit provides an extensive list of indicators to measure transport infrastructure availability and impact of transport system in existing condition and for alternate scenarios on society and environment. As per the R-toolkit, the CMP should propose strategies and prioritize them based on the scenario analysis. However, the review of CMP for Udaipur and Salem shows that the indicators related to measuring health, safety, and security were not measured. This is due to the complexity involved in measuring these indicators and lack of R-toolkit in defining method for measuring them. There is a need to develop methods and tools for measuring these indicators that can be adopted by the local authorities and/or the consultants preparing the CMP. The objectives laid in NUTP can be achieved by CMP by integrating CMP in the existing legal and institutional framework and developing monitoring mechanisms to assess implementation of CMP.