ENVIROMENT MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

MUMBAI TRANSPORT SYSTEM

Mumbais public transport, currently used by more than 90% of the commuters bears
testimony not only to the broader, more pragmatic Mumbaikar spirit but also to the
transport systems historical efficiency and extensive coverage.
The city's railway system often hailed as the citys lifeline, covers 319 km, services
more than 7 million people every day and has the highest passenger density in the world.
The bus system, run by the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), is the
worlds largest public transport body catering to more than 5 million passengers daily over
365 routes.

CHALLENGES

But like most metropolitan cities in India, Mumbais public transport system is
overburdened and challenged with an ever-increasing demand.
The rising prosperity of the middle class and the continued migration from different
parts of India to Mumbai has added to the woes of the already crippled transport
infrastructure of Mumbai.
While the road and rail length and the fleet capacity of the public transport have
remained stagnant over the years, there has been a significant increase in the number of
private vehicles on the roads of Mumbai.
Around 450 new vehicles are registered in Mumbai every day, much lesser than Delhis
1,335, but large enough to throttle the erstwhile efficient transport system.
The insufficiency of the current systems get highlighted every monsoon when the city
practically comes to a standstill.
The second order effects of the crippled transport infrastructure are even more
significant - the cost of business goes up dramatically as a result of traffic congestion,
which results in a huge drain on the economy, the elevated pollution levels due to the
rising CO2 emissions has huge ramifications on the health and environmental fronts etc.
Urban transport companies across India are finding it difficult to stay afloat in the face
of increasing fuel costs and accumulating losses. The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply
and Transport (BEST), Mumbais public bus provider, is no exception.
However, the agencys high ratio of employees to buses means operating costs are very
high and BEST struggles not to lose money every year. The agency owns a fleet of over
4,700 buses, which serve 365 city routes along 70,000 kilometres daily.
Not all of these buses are run daily due to a lack of road space; with a portion of the
fleet being grounded in depots each day.
With 11.2 employees per bus, the agency has the highest employee to bus ratio in India.

SOLUTIONS
 To combat these issues, Mumbai has recently embarked on the development of a metro
and monorail system. While these new projects are a welcome addition, the new
infrastructure would automatically warrant additional demand.
These new projects have to be augmented with more prudent ways to manage the current
demand that judiciously allocates the available capacity.
It is in this dimension that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can play
an instrumental role. With the rapid spread of ICT in tackling urbanization issues across
the globe, it is pertinent for Mumbai to embrace ICT to tackle its transportation issues.
The pervasiveness of mobile phones and smart phones in India lend themselves to
creating a digital infrastructure, which could perhaps alleviate some of the transportation
issues in Mumbai. Thus, a smart transportation system is the need of the hour for
efficient traffic management.
A smart transportation system comprises of three primary components vehicles that
take people and goods from one place to another, pathways (roads, rails etc.) that enable
this movement and terminals (bus stations, train stations etc.) that serve as a starting or
ending point of a journey. By overlaying ICT on these components, critical information
could be gathered which the operators or users could then use to automate certain
processes or make more informed decisions.
For instance, the congestion pricing mechanism in Stockholm was aimed at alleviating
the congestion on some of the busiest routes in Stockholm by charging a variable cost
for driving on those routes. A similar scheme in Singapore resulted in a decrease in
traffic of nearly 25,000 vehicles during peak hours and an increase of about 20% in the
average road speed.
To increase the usability and accountability of this system, the citizens could
automatically get their bank accounts debited for tolls and congestion charges and
review the deductions and their traffic habits through a self-help online system.
Such a system would help not only in an overall reduction in traffic volumes but also in
a reduction of the massive economic costs associated with traffic congestion
To combat the above issues, the BEST agency has been undertaking reforms in the last
five years.
BEST has concentrated on raising new sources of revenue with advertising on buses,
leasing buses to airlines for transport; adding new buses and converting the fleet to
natural gas and introducing smartcards.
Recently the BEST along with NMMT and MBMT (bus providers in Navi Mumbai)
collaborated with EMBARQ India to conduct two workshops training drivers in both
undertakings to unique driving techniques to reduce fuel consumption and increase
efficiency.
Reforms for agencies such as BEST and traffic conditions are made difficult by the
multitude of agencies in Mumbai that deal with such transport issues. Plans are
underway to create a Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) that will unify
all major stakeholders under one umbrella.