A working strategic plan on improving and promoting the public

transport system in India with emphasis on rural areas.

Hardikkumar Alpeshbhai Panchal

Master of Project Management

PMN604 – Strategy and Projects

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Project Management

Science and Engineering Faculty

Queensland University of Technology
20/04/2020

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Table of Contents
Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 3
Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Rich picture: ............................................................................................................................ 4
1.2 Objectives: .............................................................................................................................. 5
1.3 Mission:................................................................................................................................... 6
1.4 Vision: ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Chapter 2: Environment scan .............................................................................................................. 7
2.1 External environment analysis: ..................................................................................................... 7
2.2 Internal Environment analysis ...................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 3: SWOT analysis ................................................................................................................ 10
3.1 Strength: ...................................................................................................................................... 10
3.2 Weakness: ................................................................................................................................... 10
3.3 Opportunities: ............................................................................................................................. 10
3.4 Threats: ....................................................................................................................................... 11
Chapter 4: Strategic approach........................................................................................................... 13
4.1 Justification of the proposed strategic plan: ................................................................................ 13
4.2 Strategic approach:...................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations ................................................................................. 15
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 16

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Executive summary
India’s rapid growth in population, urbanization, and income over the last few years has had a
huge impact on the transportation of its residents. The demand for transportation in India has
been increased by almost 8 times since 2005 which is more than any other Asian country
(Vaidya, 2014). This large growth has been positive in terms of the development of the auto
sector and associated economic growth. However, this growth has led to many problems such
as environmental pollution, poor air quality, and traffic congestion. So, these problems have
provided an opportunity to propose and implement a strategic plan to improve transportation
infrastructure in rural areas of India. The proposed strategy assures the potential to improve
transportation facilities for people residing in rural areas of India. In also includes policy
recommendations specifically created to utilize the government’s resources effectively for
promoting public transportation and growth of the current mobility scenario. Proper
implementation of the proposed strategy will help to improve the current transportation model
for rural India and encourage people to use public transport in rural India.

It is worth noting that various attempts have been made for improving transportation in India
at the state or national level by the government of India. To exemplify, Pradhan Mantri Gram
Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) has built an all-weather road at a 130 km/day rate from the last 3 years
(Singh, 2005). Several initiatives have been launched to improve urban transportation.
Therefore, hardly any attention has been given to improve transportation in the rural part of
India which is considered to be important in India as 70 percent of the population resides in
rural villages (Mandade and DP, 2016). The proposed strategic plan focuses on the betterment
of transportation in rural India and improving public transportation facilities. The report
highlights the current scenario of transportation in India and provides information about the
strategy, its execution and a brief discussion of various factors affecting the implementation of
the strategy.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Rich picture:

Figure 1 Rich picture of public transport in India

India has been experiencing rapid growth in population as well as motorization. The rapid
growth of the population has increased transportation demand for intra-city movement
purposes. But the ramification of unplanned urban growth has become intolerable for the
residents in various ways. One of the most important examples is the gradual deterioration of
overall traffic conditions in many areas where private vehicles are increasing rapidly while
road space is very low. Consequently, severe traffic congestion, increase in travel time,
unplanned road traffic systems, the occurrence of road accidents and pollution level is
increased. To overcome these problems, the government has started to improve the public
transportation network so that people can avoid using their private vehicles. There has been
development for building good public transport infrastructure by the government, but it still
hasn’t reached the rural areas where almost 70% of the population resides.

Moreover, in the highly populated dense country like India, it is very essential that more people
use public transport instead of their private vehicle as using private vehicles would lead to high
emission of pollutants in the environment. The Indian government is continuously promoting
the use of public transport by offering special fare discounts for females and students. Despite
their heavy efforts, still, the majority of the population prefers avoiding the use of public
transport and relies on their private vehicle. One of the primary reasons for people avoiding the

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use of public transport is the lack of transportation infrastructure facilities like road, bus stops,
buses and poor execution of the transportation model in the rural areas.

For instance, considering the present scenario of public transportation in rural India, road-based
transportation is the most commonly used by the people. So, people prefer to use buses instead
of the train for traveling inter-state. But the rural areas have a very low frequency of buses with
comparison to urban areas whilst the number of journeys is much higher for rural areas
(Mandade and DP, 2016). Moreover, infrastructure in rural areas like bus stops is not kept clean
and there is no information board showing the bus timings at the bus stops. Furthermore, the
wages paid to bus driver is much lesser as compared to people working in other government
sectors. This has led to a lack of bus drivers and conductors in India. In addition to these, there
are few instances where the passengers have been molested by the people while commuting on
the bus. These are the main reason people don’t prefer to use public transport in the first place.

As far as the upper and upper-middle-class people are concerned, due to lack of infrastructure
facilities, they are having the mindset that public transportation is just for poor or low-class
people. Moreover, the parking fees in the urban areas are very nominal which can be afforded
by everyone. So, they are willing to pay for the parking fees. In addition to this, very fewer
restrictions like low prices of toll tax are placed on using private vehicles by the government
which has led to the increasing use of private vehicles instead of public transport.

1.2 Objectives:

The long-term objectives of the strategy are explained using SMART in the below figure:

• To improve exisiting public transportation model and infrastructure for rural and urban
Specific areas.

• The effectiveness of the strategy can be measured by reduction of private vehicles once it is
Measurable implemented.

• Improving the accessibility of public transport in rural areas

Achievable

• More sustainble and environment freindly public transportation system

Relevant

• The time period of the study should be 10 years.

Time related

Figure 2 Long term objectives using SMART tool

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1.3 Mission:
The mission statement of the strategy is “to provide the best possible public transportation
services and improving the mobility of the regional area”

1.4 Vision:

The vision of the strategy is “to make every place in India accessible via public transport”.

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Chapter 2: Environment scan
The proposed strategy can be impacted or influenced by several factors that are out of the reach
for the organization and have been considered while developing the strategy. Factors can be
categorized in economic, demographic, political, technological and social. The data about the
actual number of people using public transport is very hard to find out as still most of the public
transport in rural areas makes use of the paper ticket and this is hardly recorded online or on
any other database. Hence, the actual number of people using public transports will be more
than the suggested numbers. Coming back to factors influencing public transportation, various
factors are discussed as follows:

2.1 External environment analysis:

Economical Political Social Demographical Technological

Demand for Government's Fare

Location Infrastructure
transportation resources distribution

Promoting
Transportation Transportation Road/Rail
public Population
fare model policy transportation
transport

Employment Stakeholder Inter-state

oppurtunities engagement distance

Figure 3 Various external factors affecting the implementation of the strategy

• Economical factors like demand for transportation, transportation fare, and employment
opportunities play a crucial role in the implementation of the strategy. The demand for
public transportation forms important framework conditions for the implementation of the
strategy. Also, public transport contributes almost 3% of the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) of India (Kumar, 2017). Other factors like transportation fare distribution and
employment opportunities of bus drivers and conductors can be impacted by the
implementation of the strategy.
• Political factors like the support of the local government in a particular state and its
relations with the central ruling party, allocation of government resources like funds and
manpower, their existing transportation policy, stakeholder engagement and priority

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 criteria of government to improve existing public transportation model can impact the
implementation of the strategy.
• There is misperception going on socially regarding the use of public transportation
because of the kind of infrastructure available suggests the public transport is just for a
low class or lower-income people. Thus, people are hesitated to use public transportation
in the first place. Moreover, fare distribution is not categorized as per people's needs. For
example, students who travel more frequently should be provided fare discounts on their
journey. So, social factors like current fare distribution, promoting awareness among
people regarding public transport can play a huge role in improving the strategy.
• As far as the demographic factors are concerned, there is very little a government can do
considering the population and interstate distance cannot be changed. As the people living
in a rural area would have low income compared to the urban area, journey fares can be
decided based on the location, average income of the population, and distance. These
factors can impact the proposed strategy.
• Technological factors like the current infrastructure of roads, buses and bus stops are very
outdated as far as the current trend in technological advancement is concerned. Various
rural areas in India are not accessible through roads due to a lack of infrastructure. So,
constructing a road for rural areas, building sustainable buses with the latest technology
in automobile and improvement in existing bus stops infrastructure can revolutionize the
public transportation sector in India and can increase the use of public transportation.
Moreover, the growth of the IT sector can also play a crucial role in the development of
public transportation. As of now, the IT sector is poorly linked with public transport
model, marketing, and finance.

2.2 Internal Environment analysis

The government of India has the maximum potential to successfully implement the strategy as
it has most of the resources like financial capability, human resources to work on the strategy,
high reputation and can develop a good transportation model for rural areas. There have been
several similar projects initiated by the government but still could not yield the desired results.
As the objective of the projects was not clearly defined, the plan worked in some of the rural
areas for a very short time but in a long term, the strategy could not meet the actual demand
for public transportation. Also, the government has failed to convey the message to rural areas
and as a result, people are not aware of the actual benefits of public transport like fare rates,
journey duration. Moreover, a lack of research regarding possible risks like actual demand for
transportation, fare rates, a link between the organization and people were observed in the last
initiated plans by the government.
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For an instance government had started to provide discounted fares especially for students and
woman in the rural areas to travel to the nearby urban city but several people started to take
these benefits by declaring themselves as a student. On the other hand, many students don’t get
the opportunity to travel as many seats are occupied by the people claiming them to be a
student. Moreover, bus drivers started to take higher fares for the journey from the students and
women as most of the people in rural areas have limited access to the internet and information
about the right fares and policies. Most of the people in rural areas are living below the poverty
line and have a low financial condition which limits them for any legal actions to fight against
this injustice. In addition to this, the government does not take any strict actions to resolve this
crisis.

Moreover, the medium used by the government to promote public transportation like an
advertisement, social media platform has not reached targeted audiences and thus several plans
implemented by the government have been ineffective despite the efforts from higher the level
government officials.

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Chapter 3: SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is a research methodology which helps the organization to identify its strength,
weakness, opportunities, and threats (Vanek, Mikolas and Zvakova, 2012).

3.1 Strength:
The internal analysis provides information related to the organization’s strengths and
weaknesses. The identified strengths are listed as follows:
• Daily transportation for nearly 10 million users to the most important areas of the state.
• Modernization of existing infrastructure.
• Financial capabilities.
• High transportation capacity.
• Political support from the central government
• Ability to improve service over the long term
• Good reputation

3.2 Weakness:
Identified weaknesses are mentioned below:
• Failures of strategies implemented in the past.
• Lack of communication with the end-user of the product.
• The less competent workforce at a lower level.
• Ineffective collaboration with the stakeholders.
• Weak management strategies.
• Government’s image in the user’s vision

3.3 Opportunities:
External environmental analysis of the strategy can help the government to understand the
present scenario of the use of public transportation. This enriches the knowledge regarding the
tools and techniques to deal with the implementation problems such as political factors. In
general, conducting external environment analysis can provide an insight into the opportunities
and threats linked with the proposed strategy.

Opportunities which are identified from conducting external environment analysis are listed as
follow:
• Expansion of the road network by constructing roads, rails, and bus stops.
• Development in transportation infrastructure.

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• Increasing demand for public transportation in rural areas.
• Higher budget allocation to public transportation by the ruling government.
• Traffic decongestion in crowded areas through the introduction of new highway roads and
specific lanes for buses.
• Implementation of a management strategy to improve the quality of user service by
passengers.
• Revenue generated from ticket sales can contribute to the GDP of India.
• The intensification of marketing services can improve the government’s image in the user’s
vision.
• The possibility of reducing the pollution caused by automobiles by making modern use of
transport technology like energy recovery model.

3.4 Threats:
Threats which are identified are mentioned below:
• Misperception of public transport being just for low-class people due to the present scenario
of infrastructure.
• Technologically outdated and inefficient public transport vehicles causing high
environmental pollution.
• Less accurate data measurement of the number of passengers, demand for transportation.
• Continuous growth in the number of private vehicles getting registered in India.
• The increase in fuel prices.
• High environmental pollution due to present outdated buses and trains.
• Lack of land needed for infrastructure development which can delay expansion of the
public transportation model.
• The dispute between the state government and the national government can delay the
strategy approval process.

The detailed pictorial presentation of the SWOT analysis can be seen below:

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 • Daily transportation for users.
• Modernization of existing infrastructure.
• Financial capabilities.
STRENGTHS • Political support from the government
• Ability to improve service over long term
• Good reputation

•Failures of strategies implemented in the past.

•Lack of communication with the end user of the
product.
WEAKNESSES •Less competent workforce at lower level.
•Ineffective collaboration with the stakeholders.
•Weak management strategies.
•Government’s image in user’s vision

• Road network expansion

• Traffic decongestion
• Higher budget allocation
OPPORTUNITIES • Intensification of marketing strategy
• Development in infrastructure.
• Revenue generations.

• Misperception of public transport

• Technologically outdated public transport
• Less accurate data measurement
THREATS • Increase in number of private vehicles
• Increase in fuel prices.
• High environmental pollution

Figure 4 SWOT analysis of the proposed strategy

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Chapter 4: Strategic approach

4.1 Justification of the proposed strategic plan:

The sharp growth in demand for public transport has overwhelmed the existing public transport
networks in India. Buses and trains in most of the urban areas are dangerously overcrowded
during peak hours. For an instance, during peak hours, suburban rail lines in Mumbai (city of
India) must carry more than the maximum design capacity of passengers leading to a “super-
dense crush load” of 10 to 12 passengers standing per square meter of floor space. Many
passengers are forced to hang out of windows or doors or even hang out on the rooftop of the
train during peak hours. Hence, public transport in suburban areas seems overcrowded and
desperately needs additional capacity.

While in the case of rural areas, the low frequency of buses and lower infrastructure facilities
are the major problem. The people in the rural area have to sometimes wait for hours to catch
the bus. Also, they don’t have any idea about the bus timings and frequencies due to lack of
information on any bus stops. Moreover, people are not aware of the actual fare rate due to lack
of information and end up paying higher fare rates to the bus drivers. Hence, the focus of the
strategy to improve the public transport network specifically for the rural areas and to
encourage people for using public transport in place of their private vehicles wherever if
possible. Furthermore, the carbon emissions due to automobiles are on the higher side in India
as compared to any other Asian country. Hence, more people using public transport would
reduce carbon emissions in the environment.

Another critical problem of the current public transport system is inefficiency, high operational
cost, lack of productivity and outdated buses and trains. The buses which are operating at
present are highly inefficient in terms of carbon emission and fuel consumption. Especially,
the operational cost of the current public transport has doubled over the last 6 years even though
there has not been a significant increase in the number of buses and trains. Clearly, much can
be done to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public transportation by implementing
a strategy that could improve the public transport model and increase the number of passengers
using public transport. The proposed strategy would solve the existing problems of public
transportation.

4.2 Strategic approach:

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Considering five broad strategies for improving public transportation especially for the rural
areas:
1. Expand present existing road transportation networks by building roads and increasing
bus frequency by introducing new buses for rural areas.
2. Promote the use of public transport by campaigning events like public announcements,
a message from government officials, advertisements, news media, social media
marketing specifically to convey a message which can reach the maximum number of
people in rural areas.
3. Reform transit regulations to increase the effectiveness of the transport model by
improving coordination among the timings of buses and trains.
4. Improvement in transport infrastructures such as stops and stations, washrooms,
refreshments, waiting areas and other convenience features for the passengers to
improve the end customer service.
5. Partnering with the organization and government to make public transport more
affordable and accessible to all the people in India.

Now to initiate the mentioned approach requires some triggering actions from the government
such as strengthening their legal policies, dedicate their human resources, promotion campaign,
and marketing of the strategy on newspaper, news media, social media which would help to
build awareness among the people regarding public transportation.

4.3 Consumer segment:

It is very difficult to measure the actual number of people using public transportation due to
the unavailability of the current data, but it is estimated that almost 10 million persons per year
rely on public transport. These numbers are expected to grow at 5% every year considering
population growth and urbanization. The main concern about these numbers is that only 56%
of people reside in rural areas and face difficulty for public transportation as public
transportation model is fully developed in some urban areas. Thus, the main targeted audience
of the strategy will be the people living in rural areas as well as the students, old age people
living in urban areas. The proposed strategy intends to offer concession fares specifically for
the students and old age people.

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Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations

In the current situation, nearly 10 million people use public transport like buses, train every
year both in the rural and urban areas but accurate numbers are not available on any database.
Also, there is a big gap in the number of buses for urban and rural areas, former having many
numbers of buses. So, in a border way, a strategy that handles this imbalance and improves the
existing transportation model specifically for rural areas can be regarded as the most effective
strategy. There is a huge scope in improving current infrastructure like roads, bus stations
which could improve the end-user experience and thus promoting the use of public transport.
There are various research showing that the pollution levels in India are already on the higher
side and can be improved by implementing a strict measure for transportation such as higher
parking fees, high toll tax for private vehicles and thus people would be forced to opt for public
transportation.

The proposed strategy is an attempt to improve the existing scenario of the public transportation
in India and implementation of much better transportation model which can connect all the
rural and urban areas by
• Developing road infrastructure for all the rural and urban areas and building bus stops
wherever required.
• Promoting the use of public transport instead of private vehicles for urban areas.
• Developing a technologically advanced transportation model that can link different modes
of transportation together and provides accurate data.
• Partnering with the various organization to improve the customer's experience which would
improve the government’s image in the user’s vision.
Hence, the proposed strategy is expected to deliver several benefits to the government such as
revenue generation, improve reputation, serving people directly.

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Bibliography
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India. Journal of Commerce & Trade, 12(2).

Mandade, K. and DP, B., 2016. Comparative Study of Continuous Vs. Intermittent Technique of
Episiotomy Suturing in Rural Population of India. International Journal Of Medical Science And
Clinical Invention.

Singh, S., 2005. Review of Urban Transportation in India. Journal of Public Transportation, 8(1),
pp.79-97.

Vaidya, O., 2014. Evaluating the Performance of Public Urban Transportation Systems in
India. Journal of Public Transportation, 17(4), pp.174-191.

Vaněk, M., Mikoláš, M. and Žváková, K., 2012. Evaluation Methods of Swot Analysis / Metody
Vyhodnocení Swot Analýzy. GeoSci

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