Economic Analysis of Energy Efficient Transportation in India with Special Reference to the Passenger Movement

Abstract

Along with movement of goods, the movement of people is equally important and hence public transportation system plays an important role. Amongst all the modes, passenger movement by road is very crucial since it provides end connectivity. In Indian context, passenger movement by road primarily done by public bus transport services and private bus operator may be for short distance, i.e. local transportation or urban transport, and long distance with in state or between various states. Further, with the increase in population of the country and thus the economic activities too, the demand for passenger movement too increased over period of time and hence demand for bus transportation also increased. However, in majority of the cases, the buses operated by either government or private players using the fuel such as diesel, CNG, etc. Very recently, in some of the cases we found that electric buses and other vehicles are also being utilized for passenger movement. But, still a big question exists that which system is more efficient from energy efficient transportation perspectives. Every fuel pattern has its own pros and corns. Our economy has witness the gradual shift of passenger transportation from diesel to CNG/LNG in terms of energy usage, and very recently to electric energy too, but still the question is—Do we have energy efficient transportation? Because this concept applies to many components such as saving of fuel through efficiency in usage, save of cost through cost incurring for per passenger kilometre, save of environment through less pollution, availability of required infrastructure, ease of adaptability of required infrastructure, ease of adaptability in existing system, technological advancement and its availability, and many more. Similarly, having energy efficient transportation system is beneficial for any economy in general and Indian economy in particular from many perspectives. As observed that in Indian case, although total number of buses are increasing, but the share of public transportation has decline due to various reasons. Therefore, brining efficiency in energy usage is very important since the traditional source like diesel, CNG etc. have limitations in availability in our economy on one hand, and our dependence on import on other hand where our total demand met with 80–85% import of crude, which further bring financial burden on our ex-chequer, and hence may disturb our overall economic scenario. Thus, having learnt that energy efficient transportation can play an importation role in economic development through various ways, an attempt is being made in this paper to look at various sources of energy used by public transportation system in particular and find out the scope to bring efficiency in energy use through technological advancement and thus, more from non-renewable source of energy to renewable source of energy, where ever is possible. Further, as non-renewable source of energy has its own limitation and consequences to the economic system, the study will also look at the level of penetration of energy type in public transportation system. For this, the study will look at some of the state transportation undertaking including municipal transportation too. Hence, primarily for this RSRTC (Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation) and JCTSL (Jaipur City Transport Service Limited) will be taken as case for discussion. However, one can see the need for energy efficient transportation is mandatory in current economic scenario, when the basic mantra’s of economic survival is to bring efficient in every domain and save the resources whenever, wherever and in whatever quantity is possible and further this saved resource can be utilized for additional socio-economic welfare of the society. Hence, this paper is proposing real-life solution which is primarily technological based in relation to energy efficient transportation through an appropriate model. The suggested model may be utilize as proposed or may be with some modification, it can be use, i.e. it would be situation based.