Restructuring Urban Public Transport in India

Transportation in the urban context assumes great economic significance, as the productive efficiency of urban areas will be maintained only if mobility requirements in the cities are fully met. However, this productive efficiency is now threatened by the increasing number of vehicles causing congestion, and thus slower speeds on roads. An effective way to address this problem is to encourage greater use of public transport instead of personal vehicles. This requires both an increase in the carrying capacity of the public transport system and a quantum improvement in the quality of public transport. In addition, despite the high volumes of traffic, most urban centers in India do not have any rail transit system to cater to intracity movements. Hence, there would be substantial dependence on bus services to meet public transport needs for the next several years. This is likely to result in a major restructuring of the current provisioning of public transport in the urban centers. This article highlights various options for restructuring the provision of road-based public transport and synthesizes them into a strategy for reform, given the commercial viability of the various activities carried out by public transport operators in India.