ATLANTIC AREA CONFERENCE TOUR REPUTE PROJECT (RENEWABLE ENERGY IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT ENTERPRISE)

9TH JUNE 2015, GLASGOW

Rajnish Ahuja

Associate Fellow, Pahle India Foundation

AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE ON SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT STRATEGY

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Share of different modes of Transport in GDP

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The need for a Sustainable Transport Strategy

Rapidly developing countries, with their exploding car ownerships and travel rates, must focus on making transport more ecologically friendly. Sustaining the current GDP needs proper environment management which calls for a sustainable transport strategy

Transport sector accounted for 6.6 % of the GDP in 2008-09 of which road transport played the dominant role

India in particular has great potential to reap the benefits of green transport initiatives due to its huge population and heavy reliance on motorized transport.

Worldwide, the transport sector is the second largest contributor to total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after energy sector.

The present share of transport in terms of total final energy consumption in India is only about 11% but it is projected to increase 23.4 % by 2035.

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What India needs to aim at?

The CO2 emissions of India were 0.15 billion tons in 2008.

As estimated by the Press Information Bureau of India, India’s absolute greenhouse gas emissions in 2031 will vary from 4 billion tonnes to 7.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalents with projected per capita emissions in the range of 2.77 tonnes to 5 tonnes CO2 equivalents.

India must look beyond its current state towards the type of country it hopes to become, and must find a balance between increasing wealth and prosperity, acceptable mobility and access, and low emission levels.

As a developing country, without significant existing infrastructure, implementation and management of technology measures must occur simultaneously.

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What India needs to aim at? (continued….)

Challenge: Developing multi-modal transport system to cater to the large population

To facilitate an India-specific multimodality, a number of different kinds of integration are required:

  Integration with land-use planning like building public transit links first

and then developing the high-density, mixed land-use around them, thereby reducing the need to travel, especially by private vehicles.

Improved integration within and between different modes of transport, including the construction of multimodal transit stations

Fare Integration—Enabling the public transit user to pay once for a journey involving different transit modes.

Information Integration—Enabling a ‘one-stop-shop’ for public transit users, cyclists, and walkers to gain information on any journey they wish to conduct using these modes. For e.g. the app developed by

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Greening the Indian Railways

Indian Railways (IR) is spread over a network of 64,015 route kilometers of track and with over 7,000 stations on which more than 18,000 trains ply carrying more than 18.9 million passengers, and hauling about 2.3 million tons of freight every day, making it one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world

It has a major share of the bulk freight and long distance passenger traffic in the country

Presently, the double line in the Golden Quadrilateral, which links India’s four main cities/regions (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) is becoming fully electrified, with a target now at 1000 route-kilometres of electrification installed per year

It is reasonably estimated that above 65% of goods traffic and around 50% of passenger traffic in IR moves uses electric power

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Electrification Scenario for Indian Railways

One of the notable points is that that there is a distortion in the overall transport movement of goods i.e. the modal mix needs to be changed. Most of the freight is carried by roads, represented by the fact that the 12th five year plan study presents a significant scope for modal switch from Road to Rail in the case of miscellaneous/other commodities up to the extent of 78 per cent.

Share of goods transported by different modes 2007-08 (% of total goods transported)India China USA

Road 57% 22% 37%

Rail 38% 47% 48%

Shipping 6% 30% 14%

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Electrification Scenario for Indian Railways (continued….)

Energy Saving in Indian Railways

   IR consumes around 12 billion kWh of electrical energy for

traction purpose 2.3 billion kWh of electrical energy for non-traction

purpose. The non-traction energy is mainly for workshops, production units, stations, and household use.

IR is using a two-pronged strategy towards energy saving. By using energy efficient rolling stock, the growth of the traction energy is diluted and by taking energy conservation steps, the non-traction consumption is rolled back.

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Indian Railway Vision 2020

   Major augmentation of capacity through doubling and quadrupling of lines,

complete segregation of passenger and freight lines on High Density Network (HDN) routes

Raising the speed of regular passenger trains to 160-200 km/hr on segregated routes

Implementation of at least 4 high-speed rail projects to provide bullet train services at 250-350 km/hr

A significant reversal of the erosion of market share of railways from 35% in 2009 (it was 80% in the early 1950s) to at least 50%. This will be done by creating adequate capacity, achieving cost-effectiveness, improving quality of service and providing new value-added services on a customized basis

The railways will use their existing land possessions to the maximum extent and help set up multi-modal stations, logistics parks, and industrial hubs.

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Use of Ethanol Blended Petrol

   The Indian government will soon move to a mandatory

blending of petrol with ethanol (EBP), pegging the target at 10%, in what could be a first step towards reducing the escalating fuel import bill.

India has struggled to get petrol blending off the ground, despite a Union Cabinet decision in 2010. Uncertainty over availability of ethanol could be dealt by making EBP variable— the oil marketing companies could be given the choice to have higher targets when ethanol supply is bountiful and lower in an adverse year.

The current government is moving forward to achieve its target of a 20% ethanol-petrol blend by 2017 in a phased manner

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Increasing Use of Public Transport

In India, public transport accounts for only 22 % of urban transport

Compared with 49 per cent in similar lower middle-income countries of the Philippines, Venezuela, Egypt and 40 per cent in upper middle-income countries of South Africa, South Korea and Brazil.

Given the declining share of public transport, insufficient quantity and unsatisfactory quality, the overall image of public transport is still quite low and is mostly for captive riders with no other alternative. Out of 423 class I cities, only 65 have a formal city bus service as of 2012.

To curb the growth of private vehicles, Indian government is likely to levy a ‘green surcharge’ of Rs 2 (3.6 cents) per liter of petrol, a ‘green cess’ of 4 per cent on a vehicle’s insured value, and a urban transport tax of up to 20 per cent on all vehicles across the country.

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Increasing Use of Public Transport

This revenue, estimated to be as much as Rs 39,100 crore ($8.8 Billion USD), will finance the mass transit needs of different areas. They funds would contribute towards a proposed non-lapsable and non-fungible National Urban Transport Fund (NUTF).

Overall, the implementation of the green cess described here would: Incentivize the eco friendly behavior and a move towards the use

of Non – Motorized Transport. Create NUTF pool of money for transport investments, providing

better public transport more attractive to the users.

India needs to look for collaborations with the countries that have already had success in making their transport more sustainable. This can be achieved by international collaborations with the expert personnel and the companies

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THANK YOU

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