City Expansion: Driving Transit Innovation and Last-Mile Connectivity

It’s been a while I have been considering sharing my thoughts about the Public and Mass Transit Systems and City Dynamics. Let me take my bail, it’s just my thoughts with minimal research. There are a lot of aspects to be talked about on these, hence putting it as a series - Mobility and Urban Dynamics(thanks to unsungnovelty for implementing the series feature in this theme). Hoping to make it more interesting with more facts in coming articles
License: This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

As the city grows, opportunity grows resulting in the growth of population. Inflation in population demands an expansion of the city from the city centre. The city expansion will force the infrastructural developments and transit modes' innovations. Metro cities are building various mass and rapid transport systems to solve the commutation problem. The last-mile connectivity is an unsolved puzzle in most of these cities. For the same reason, people avoid mass transit modes.

Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India was recently accredited as the second slowest city in the world after London and became the sixth in traffic congestion by TomTom’s Research. With expanding metro networks and suburban rail networks Bangalore is expected to have a better mass rapid commutation facility, but the last mile connectivity is a question to be solved separately.

Pune, the sixth slowest city in the world also tried solving its commutation problem with a BRTS in 2006 but failed and now experimenting with metro rail. Whereas Ahmedabad is successfully running the BRT service and opened the metro rail connecting Gandhinagar. Last-mile connectivity is a question here as well. Delhi along with its satellite cities of Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurugram, Noida and Bahadurgarh is served by the country’s busiest and largest metro network also has not solved this. Mumbai with its famous suburban rail network holding 40% of Indian Railways’ daily ridership, along with modern monorail and metro rail is also unable to reduce the traffic on Mumbai roads. Kolkata tested metro rail first time in the country was also not different in solving last-mile connectivity. Chennai or any other metro cities are no different in case.

Kochi is no different in solving last-mile connectivity. The city has a multimodal mass transit system with metro rail, bus, recently opened country’s first water metro, local buses, E and Auto rickshaws, and various ride-hailing services in place still struggling to untangle the commutation problem for last mile connectivity. Kochi Metro Rail Limited is trying many innovations in the sector.

The main factors I’ve found for people choosing private transport over public transport are the lack of the following:

1. Affordable and reliable public transportation facility
2. Clean and hassle-free travel experience
3. Last mile connectivity
4. Availability of the service
5. Fast and secure service with amenities.
6. Modernisation and technological advancements

My Thoughts for a Solution

1. All Journey, One Ticket

Introduce the single ticketing system for all modes of travel through smart card and smart ticketing systems. Paris’ multi-modal transit solution irrespective of the operator and system (including tramp, bus, suburban train, and metros) accepts one ticket (most of the time) is a model which can be followed. Kochi Metro and Delhi Metro trying to implement it partially with Kochi One card and Delhi One card.

2. Plan the network better

Plan the network wisely considering current traffic and the future expansion of the city. Identify the corridors and the peak intervals of the commuters and plan the network and frequency of services accordingly.

3. Parking

Provide ample parking spaces at affordable rates at the stations of mass transit modes. Parking space should also have security ensured for the parked vehicle. The parking space can be leased out or can be run by the transist agencies itself. But the infrastructure for it such as space should be allocated while planning the network and stations. This allows the communters to fulfill their last mile connectivity with a mixed mode of private and public transport. Most of the Transist network especially metro rail network gives attention in creating the parking space, although they fail to give a good operational service at the parking lots resulting in people avoiding the transit networks entirely.

4. Last-mile connectivity options

Feeder services to the locations can help a lot in the last mile connectivity and encourage the use of mass transit modes. Kochi adopted Feeder service of E rickshaws and partnering with the KSRTC the feeder bus services from and to metro stations to various main centers such as Airport, Bus Depots etc. where metro is not connected.

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation and Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation has started feeder services from different metro stations to the areas of public demand where metro lines are not available. Similar services are run in Delhi and Mumbai metro lines also.

5. Modern World, Morden Solutions

This is a bit bigger section were all the wild ideas can be discussed. With its increase in connectivity and network peneration the game changer to this will be the mobile phone based smart technologies and the innovation they are going to bringing in. Unlike other solutions this need not be managed or implemented by the transist agencies or government, this can be developed and managed by NGOs, citizens, corporates and even small entrepreneurs. The scope of business in providing these solutions are the key to the innovation as well. Now its no more a service, it can also be a business where agencies are not tied by the norms, regulations or funds. The entrepreneurs can step in with the wildest solutions that are adding values to the transist services.

One such example to this is making the transist purchase available through various platforms such as PayTM, WhatsApp etc. enabling the commuter to board the transit vehicle without standing in queues to buy tickets or having a dedicated travel card. Another example can be the Mooveit and m-Indicator who operates on providing reliable data to the commuters and generating revenue out of it.

Have a look at the Traffic Index Dashboard from TomTom.
Will write in detail specifically pertaining to this last section of Modern World, Morden Solutions for commute problems in next blog of this series. Let me know your thoughts as well. @arkarjun.