Urban challenge of Transportation: Reducing movement is the solution not easing flow

Some decades back the solution to urban transportation problem was to build more roads, widen existing roads and build fly-overs, sky-walks, etc. It also meant expanding the metropolitan rail network, build more levels and connect surface transportation networks with under-ground.

This approach was instrumental in creating the foundation for mega-cities and the ease of transportation allowed large scale movement of people across long distances. The setting up of office network in large cities and also housing in a planned manner made allowance for development of a real estate market which added enormous value in times to come.

So it was just not the movement of people, but the co-movement of a number of things that led to the urban challenge that we are trying to solve now.

Some mega cities learnt in the hard way that moving people in large numbers cannot be the do-all and end-all of all urban public good. The best example was Los Angeles that had so many vehicle movements that it had to dis-incentivize number of vehicles on road. Vehicle lanes were made that gave exclusive access to cars with more than one passenger, but unfortunately that was found to be the most unutilized lane.

Manila came out with a solution of having unique registration numbers for each day of travel from Monday to Friday, so that a person having a vehicle would be able to travel only once a week; unfortunately with time people starting having four to five cars to get around this embargo.

Singapore introduced such hefty charges for car registration that it became enormously expensive to own a car so that people get used to public transportation. New York and London tried almost everything but the privileged are those who live near their working spaces not by distance but by the commuting time as the mode of commuting determined everything. But getting a space reserved for your travel in that best mode still leaves a lot to be desired.

The case in point is Mumbai. Imagine that the rail is the best way to commute but may not be the most convenient. 7.5 Million people travel daily in passenger trains in Mumbai, which is equal to the population of New Zealand or Switzerland. But the question is why in the first place do you need to move 7.5 million people every day? The second is to see why you cannot reduce the distance of travel.

The way we have tackled urban transportation challenges in the past is by providing solutions to increasing movements, not decreasing them. More movements were synonymous with greater economic activity but what it missed to measure is the loss in productivity or the loss in the quality of life.

The world over the attention is shifting to reduce movements, not increase them. It is only by this that higher productive output of the nation can be achieved. The problem definition has shifted to “Access” rather than “Movements”.

This is easier said than done. It needs the coordination of urban planning, housing, transportation, rail and civil aviation to work in concert across a range of objective functions, some of which could be acting at cross-purpose.

The simplest of the conflicting objective function would be road versus rail versus housing. In a limited space one would be competing with the other.

Who will take the call whether a road needs to be widened or a park needs to be made or a rail link needs to be extended or a housing complex needs to be constructed?

The Swiss have a solution through their system of Cantons, the self-governance model where the local populace can directly vote or decide an outcome. Such direct democracy is impossible in large populations where the most voted outcome need not be the best for the public as there are so many conflicting objectives at play.

A complex puzzle of moving people to work must account for every constituency, the early movers of the day to the night travelers; sheer high numbers who move during the peak hours would out-vote any move by the lesser numbers that move at other times. It will end up penalizing those who are least contributing to the general congestion.

Governance will stand out as the most important dampener. Public-Private partnerships have found that this is a very difficult proposition. For example it may be necessary to move office hubs out of the city or the airport or the dense housing complexes. Each decision will impact a certain section at the cost or benefit to the other. It will eventually lead to cross-subsidy.

Switzerland found a solution that is working even now. Instead of making a mega city, it is better to have smaller towns and instead of widening roads so that more cars can go to the city they found solution in keeping the roads inside the city as narrow as possible.

Zurich for example has only limited number of car parking spaces; this makes only a limited number of cars possible to be moved to the city daily. They have not changed the policy.

Ministers to CEOs all travel by the same trams or buses in Zurich.

This is also the reason why the quality of service is so high.

Sometimes the long term solutions are just the opposite of the short term ones. If governments coming to power had long tenures, the solutions could be different as well.