Focus on pedestrian movement for?smoother conveyance in urban spaces

Abstract

There are many possibilities to make a city smart. The moresignificant question is how. Smart mobility in urban spaces needs to focus on what I call the five ‘S’s—safety, security, stresslessness, sustainability and speed. Smartness often means technology solutions, primarily driven by information technology. In the Indian context, such ‘smartness’ cannot go very far, unless the underlying infrastructure hardware is in place.

Take an aspirational city like Bengaluru. Both the limited road space and the increasing vehicle ownership form an unhealthy combination that affects both speed and sustainability in a significant manner.

Out of the top seven metro cities in India, Bengaluru has the lowest average vehicular speed at 17.2km per hour. Kolkata, with a lower road space, but with more public transport, has an average speed of 19.2km per hour. Talking of increasing public transport, which is a ‘smart’ way to go, Kolkata and Mumbai have high shares of public transport usage, but still woefully inadequate in service levels. Delhi has done well with an extensive metro system, which is increasing, but it appears that those who can ‘afford’ are using their personal vehicles more and, therefore, neither road congestion nor pollution levels have come down. Read more at: https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/iN6SeXDdheRuVHmli4D6jP/Focus-on-pedestrian-movement-forsmoother-conveyance-in-urba.html