Public bicycle sharing: Ranchi’s big move to being a cycle-friendly city!

25th April 2018 by admin

“At the end of the day, I head to a nearby store for vegetables and other items before walking home,” explains Shivani, a native of Ranchi who commutes to work by shared auto rickshaw. Her shuttle isn’t uncommon in a city that’s growing rapidly despite the lack of formalised public transport system. However, she needn’t fret – the city’s ‘go-ahead’ for a public bicycle sharing system (commonly known as PBS system) aims to improve last-mile connectivity.

In Jharkhand’s first step toward cycle-friendly streets, Ranchi city has begun construction of its PBS system stations this month. ITDP assisted the State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) in preparing the feasibility of PBS in Ranchi that proposes to see 1200 cycles distributed in the state capital. ITDP also provided technical assistance for the tender document and review of bids in the process.

Construction of PBS stations underway in Ranchi

A PBS system is a flexible form of personal public transport. Cycles are stored in a closely spaced network of stations. With a smart card or other form of identification, a user can check out a cycle from a station and return it to any other station. The system offers the convenience of cycling without the burden of ownership, and the flexibility to accommodate one-way trips.

PBS stations are being built in high-density commercial areas

With the finalisation of the operator, the system is being implemented in two phases: 600 cycles will be rolled out by May and the remaining 600 by July. The cycle stations provide access to notable public destinations in high-density commercial activity zones like Main Road and Lalpur Road, institutional areas and residential neighbourhoods.

The implementation of the system will not only enhance the image of cycling in Ranchi, but also reduce congestion and improve air quality by attracting private vehicle users. Ranchi’s endeavour to reclaim streets for people will bring them a new experience: a city that can be enjoyed on cycles!

Pune inspires Tamil Nadu cities to reclaim streets for people

6th April 2018 by admin

“Smart cities are equivalent to glamorous buildings where policies and guidelines form a strong foundation”, Mr. Kunal Kumar, IAS, Commissioner of Pune Municipal Corporation. Over the years, our streets have been reduced to battlefields as people try to grapple with traffic congestion, lack of footpaths, and air pollution. One city that has taken bold, applaudable measures to rectify this chaos is Pune. Pune has been and continues to be an inspiration for many Indian cities that strive to reclaim streets for its people.

To explore Pune’s accomplishments, ITDP organised and facilitated a study tour for Tamil Nadu city officials – Corporation Commissioners of Erode, Madurai, Salem, Tiruppur, and Vellore, accompanied by engineers from the office of the Commissionerate of Municipal Administration. The study tour was conducted in collaboration with Pune Smart City Development Corporation Ltd. (also known as PSCDCL) and Pune Municipal Corporation, in February. The one-day programme aimed to sensitise participants on the best practises of designing complete streets – streets with quality footpaths, segregated cycle tracks, safe pedestrian crossing and managed parking.

Delegates interacting with PSCDCL team at the Smart City Operations Centre

The delegates visited the Smart City Operations Centre that seamlessly integrates management and monitoring of the smart city operations. To the extent, “this system also oversees the energy consumed by streetlights in the city and alerts us when any light stops working”, explained Mr. Manojit Bose,Chief Knowledge Officer, PSCDCL. The team from Tamil Nadu marvelled at the Centre’s resourcefulness at data collection and efficiency in maintaining the city’s public infrastructure.

This was followed by a roundtable discussion, facilitated by Mr Kunal Kumar, Commissioner, Pune Municipal Corporation. Mr Kumar highlighted three guiding principles for a smart city: adopt policies that guide it’s existing and future transportation requirements, leverage multiple sources of funding, and build internal capacity. Pune has launched a two-year programme with Singapore Land Transport Authority to enable 120 engineers from five departments in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad to acquire the knowledge and skills required for the projects.

Mr. Kunal Kumar interacts with the Tamil Nadu team and shares his recommendations for the success of the smart city projects.

The discussion was followed by a site visit to Aundh-DP road to observe the seamless execution of Pune’s complete streets. Mr. Vikas Thakar, Pavetech Consultants, gave an insight into the implementation of high quality streets and detailed the design process of DP road. The delegates took the opportunity to experience Pune’s public bicycle sharing (PBS) system first-hand by cycling along the dedicated cycle tracks on DP Road. Pune’s dockless PBS system was proposed under the city’s Bicycle Plan which piloted 275 bicycles of the proposed total of 13,100 docked bicycles. The system received a great response from the delegates.

Tamil Nadu delegates testing Pune’s dockless PBS system

The delegates also visited a transformed public amenity space at Baner. Pune’s vision of creating recreational spaces has been revolutionised. Gone are the days when parks were the only public open spaces in the city. Underutilised and derelict parcels of land have been acquired by the Corporation and developed into theme-based amenity spaces. The two pilot projects in Baner are perfect examples of how cities can explore and catalyse the versatility of urban spaces.

Amenity space developed on the theme of ‘Art and Culture’ in Baner

Although smart cities are often synonymous with information and communication technologies, a city has to invest in human and social capital for improving the quality of life and achieving sustainable economic development. That is when it can truly become a smart city. And, after the exposure visit to Pune, it can be safely said that this is what cities in Tamil Nadu are aspiring for!

#PressforProgress: Cities must measure sexual harassment in streets and public transport

8th March 2018 by admin

Cover Image by Adam Cohn
Written by Sonal Shah

Over the last decade, there has been acknowledgement in mainstream media on the sexual harassment faced by women and girls in urban public transport and on streets around the globe. The fear of crime is widely recognised as a barrier to public transport use. Yet, our mobility plans continue to remain gender blind, as they do not measure the level and extent of harassment faced by women and girls. The normalization of harassment puts the onus of safety on women and girls, thereby restricting their behaviour and mobility. The role of transport planning in alleviating or exacerbating sexual harassment and violence has not yet percolated within mainstream discourse and in the minds of policy and decision makers. This is a lost opportunity as the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that US$28 trillion would be added to the global economy by 2025, if women were to play an identical role to men in markets.

While mainstream media has focused on gruesome incidents such as rape, violence against women and girls also includes groping, molestation, staring, stalking, stealing, cat calls and acid attacks. In Delhi, a 2010 study with over 5000 men and women showed that over 95% of the women had experienced harassment in the past year and public transport, buses and streets were identified as the most vulnerable spaces. While women of all ages faced some form of violence or sexual harassment, school and college girl students in the 15-19 age-group were the most vulnerable. In Mumbai too, 95% of the women respondents reported sexual harassment, 46% reported facing harassment inside buses and 23% while waiting at bus stops.

Sexual harassment is prevalent and underreported, both in developed and developing countries. In New York City, it is estimated that 96 percent of sexual harassment and 86 percent of sexual assaults in the subway system are unreported. Similarly, in Baku, Azerbaijan, while 80 per cent of 200 women surveyed had faced sexual harassment in the metro, none of them reported it to the appropriate authority. In Brazil, it is acknowledged that more than half a million women suffer some sort of sexual violence, every year.

The nature and form of harassment is context specific. According to a research by the Women Empowerment Link, the three most prevalent forms of violence against women and girls in Kenya who use public transport are: use of derogatory language by the matatus crews, coercion of passengers to board public service vehicles against their wish and unwelcome touching of female passengers. Other common forms include contemptuous treatment of women, stealing from and stripping of women passengers.

Creating safer streets and public transport systems will require coordinated actions in infrastructure, service improvements and behaviour change arising from progressive legislation, law enforcement and social norms. While the prevalence of sexual harassment in streets and public transport is known, this data has predominantly been collected by civil society organizations. Cities need to collect gender disaggregated data and measure sexual harassment on their streets and in four legs of the public transport journey (Figure 1) to develop clear actions. These can range from reserved seats, permitting women, girls and the elderly to board or alight from buses in between stops in the night, providing real time information on the arrival of public transport vehicles amongst others. The gender disaggregated quantitative data from travel surveys must be complemented with focus group discussions to understand men and women’s perception and experience of the public transport journey across socio-economic groups.

Figure 1: Four legs of a public transport journey

Gender safety audits must be mainstreamed in the assessment of transport infrastructure. Safety audits evaluate the physical and social aspects in creating safer streets. For example, Safetipin, a phone application scores streets and neighbourhoods on 8 parameters: lighting, openness, visibility, presence of people, security personnel, condition of walking paths, availability of public transport and gender diversity. The ninth parameter allows users to rate how they feel – from comfortable to being frightened. With women and girls who do not have access to smart phones, safety audits can be conducted with them by walking through their neighbourhoods to identify and evaluate spaces along the above parameters. The safety scores provide valuable information to improve the quality of walking infrastructure and crossings, continuous and consistent street lighting, access to facilities such as public toilets, increasing “eyes on the street” (through police personnel, patrolling vans, men or women street vendors) and designing streets that encourage use by diverse groups.

Image 1: Jungli Maharaj Road, Pune (India)

Transport service providers, bystanders and police personnel must be interviewed to understand their awareness of the frequency and causes for sexual harassment and their role in preventing or addressing it. Behaviour change is a long process involving progressive legislation, law enforcement and change in social norms. However, cities can create standard operating procedures along with gender sensitization workshops to train the police and transport workers / operators to prevent and address sexual harassment. Cities can create campaigns to communicate a zero tolerance approach to sexual harassment, encourage women and girls to report incidents of sexual harassment and bystanders to intervene

Women need to be at the centre of the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of transport policies and projects as partners, professionals and as decision-makers.

Creating safer streets and public transport systems is not a one-time activity involving installation of CCTV cameras, panic buttons and GPS devices. It will require continuous and coordinated actions by multiple stakeholders – transport and urban development departments, police, commuters / bystanders and women’s groups. But cities must measure the contours of sexual harassment as part of their mobility plans, along with other dimensions of gendered travel – trip chaining, mobility of care, affordability, accessibility, comfort, convenience, forced mobility and immobility. #Pressingforprogress involves making women and girls visible as active users of streets and public transport.

A year of radical planning, 2017 passes by…

30th December 2017 by admin

“I used to take my two-wheeler to travel the 3 kilometers between my house and the railway station. I’m now able to walk the stretch, thanks to the continuous footpath. Best part – I’ve lost 5 kilos and my diabetes!” Mr. Manimaran, a resident of Egmore in Chennai, is thrilled at the tremendous change that a safer and better footpath has brought about in his life.

The year 2017 witnessed many such impactful changes in the field of sustainable transportation all around the country, including cities which ITDP India Programme has been closely working with. Thanking all our supporters, we take a look at the year that passed by.

Pune broke ground on its ambitious Complete Streets networks – a 100km-network with its own financial resources and 45km through support from the National Smart Cities Mission. The first phase of these street design projects on JM Road and DP Road has already been lauded by the country, owing to the vibrancy of these redesigned streets. Pune’s Bicycle Plan, recently approved by the General Body, paves way for the creation of a 300km bicycle-track network in the city.

Having accomplished over 40km of Complete Streets, Chennai initiated the next phase of street design by inviting tenders in late October to redesign 22km of streets. The city tested out the design of 5 key intersections through a tactical urbanism approach – quick, temporary, on-ground interventions. Chennai also conducted another trial run of the proposed pedestrian plaza in Pondy Bazaar, the success of which fetched the project a sanction of of Rs 55 crores (~US $9 million) under the Smart Cities Mission.

Smaller cities have also made remarkable progress this year in their Complete Streets programmes – Nashik appointed nationally-acclaimed urban designers to redesign its proposed street network of 50 kilometers, with 10 kilometers tendered out; and Coimbatore commenced construction of its Model Roads and hosted an interactive exhibition to inform the people of the design of the roads while collecting feedback. Coimbatore also started developing detailed implementation plans for its Greenways and Lake Restoration Project, which includes a 30km network of greenways (exclusive walking and cycling infrastructure) that crisscross the city and connect 8 water bodies.

Becoming one of the pioneering cities in parking management in the country, Ranchi implemented a progressive on-street parking management system on its busiest thoroughfare, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, with a twelve-fold increase in revenue. Inspired by the success of the pilot, the city has proposed to refine and expand the system to cover all key locations. The state of Jharkhand has also proposed to adopt a state-level parking policy.

Chennai recently invited tenders to select an operator for its proposed on-street parking management system covering 12000 equivalent car spaces on Bus Route Roads across the city. Since Pune is also working towards parking management, ITDP, in collaboration with GIZ-SUTP, facilitated and managed a two-day workshop on the topic, with international parking expert, Dr Paul Barter in the city. Participants included municipal officials, traffic police, public officials from other agencies as well as various local stakeholders.

An increase in demand for better public transport has provided the fillip to cities across the country to increase and improve their transit services. Chennai made considerable advancement in its BRT planning, with the interim report for Phase I approved by the state and a series of public consultation programmes organised to explain the significance of BRT to people and get their feedback on the various corridors.

In Pune, around 130 crore rupees was sanctioned to construct 13 new bus terminals to facilitate better integration of bus services with the proposed Metro Rail network. The city also commenced work on expanding the existing 38km Rainbow BRT by an additional 15km. Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) initiated the process of adding 200 feeder buses to its fleet, to improve connectivity between the city and the surrounding towns.

Public bicycle sharing (PBS) is emerging as a popular mode of public transit across the country. Pune piloted a dockless PBS system with 275 bicycles and signed an MoU with 4 vendors dealing with dockless systems. Two other cities are preparing for the installation of a PBS system – Ranchi and Chennai invited operators to submit proposals for setting up 1264 bicycles in 122 stations (Phase 1) and 5000 bicycles in 378 designated parking areas, respectively.

Successful and sustained on-ground changes invariably require the backing of well-framed guidelines, policies and financial plans – 2017 was marked by many of these. Two sets of guidelines – the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) planning and design guidelines, and the Guidelines on Control and Regulation of Mixed Traffic in Urban Areas – prepared by ITDP, were approved by the apex committee of the Indian Roads Congress. These guidelines will apply for all cities across India and guide them towards low-carbon mobility.

The Government of Jharkhand adopted an inclusive TOD policy that focuses on equitable development of cities in the state, so that a majority of the population lives and works in areas with safe and accessible walking and cycling facilities integrated with reliable and high-quality public transport.

The Government of Maharashtra published a draft of the State Urban Transport Policy, which promotes low-carbon & equitable mobility and urban development by prioritising public transport (PT) and non-motorised transport (NMT). Furthermore, over half of Pune’s total transportation budget of 1100 crore rupees was allocated towards sustainable transport development for the financial year 2017-18. In the South, Coimbatore adopted a Street Design and Management Policy that focuses on creating equitable and sustainable mobility options and expanding their use.

The realisation that sustainable urban development will remain elusive without integrating women’s safety and comfort in urban transport, has generated momentum to include gender as a key factor in transport planning. Bringing this subject to the fore and as a first of its kind, a paper on Women and Transport in Indian Cities was created by ITDP and Safetipin, and released at a national workshop on gender and transit conducted by the two organisations. This paper identifies indicators, service level benchmarks and processes for integrating a gender perspective in urban transport projects, policies and programs along with good practice case studies.

2017 was a year of radical planning indeed, with many grand plans conceived, developed and initiated for sustainable transportation. With all these plans set to materialize in the coming months, 2018 will be a year of implementation and tangible transformation. Looking forward to a great year ahead: Happy New Year!

#WomenOnTheMove: Women and Transport in Indian Cities

15th December 2017 by admin

“Ultimately, transportation is the fulcrum that allows women to participate in the workforce; a societal shift to transform the entire world economy.” – Sonal Shah, Senior Manager, ITDP India Programme

Centred around this idea, ITDP and Safetipin have released a policy brief on Women and Transport in Indian Cities. The draft was released on 13 June 2017 at a roundtable discussion on Gender and Transit, organized by ITDP, Safetipin and UN Women with participation from 30 women’s groups, international organizations, professionals and academic institutions.[1]

A roundtable discussion on Gender and Transit was organized by ITDP, Safetipin and UN Women with participation from 30 women’s groups, international organizations, professionals and academic institutions

The coming decade will be a defining moment for India as its urban areas are estimated to constitute around 40 per cent or 600 million of its total population by 2030. According to the High Powered Executive Committee (HPEC), around INR 23 lakh crores is required over 2015–2030 for India’s urban transport infrastructure. The national government has initiated missions and schemes to invest in urban transport and infrastructure; and created indicators and service level benchmarks to establish a city’s baseline and goal for improvement. The recently announced Green Urban Mobility Scheme (GUMS) expects to invest around INR 70,000 crores over 2018–2023 on sustainable transport.

“The defining characteristic of violence against women is its normalization and ordinary and continuous nature.” – Kalpana Viswanath, Co-founder & CEO, Safetipin

While there is momentum by different levels of government in addressing women’s safety in public transport, urban transport investments are largely gender blind with a limited understanding of the interrelationships between gender and transport. Sustainable urban development will remain elusive without integrating women and girls in urban transport.

Women and girls are close to 50 per cent of our urban population. They comprise only 19 per cent of “other workers”, 84 per cent of their trips are by public, intermediate public and non-motorized modes of transport (Census 2011)[2]. While 73 per cent of trips by “other workers” in urban areas are by sustainable modes of transport, women and girls’ share is only 14 per cent. Ultimately transportation will help women access economic and social opportunities. In the next few years, cities will need to make a concerted effort to improve women and girls’ experience of sustainable modes of transport to achieve a target of 40 per cent of all trips. The policy brief fills this gap by providing a framework to integrate technical and social, quantitative and qualitative approaches for enabling this transition.

In Section 1, the brief underscores the need for a policy brief focusing on women and transport in Indian cities. Section 2 describes the scope of the brief. The gendered dimensions of urban transport are covered in Section 3, with a focus on trip chaining and purpose, modal shares, trip distances, time poverty, sexual harassment and employment in the transport sector. Section 4 proposes urban transport indicators and service level benchmarks for comprehensive mobility plans. Recommendations to improve women’s modal shares and experiences of walking, cycling, public and intermediate public transport, and engendering public transport authorities, are highlighted in Section 5. Since urban transport is not the responsibility of one ministry or department, gender inclusion will require interventions at multiple scales and coordination with a number of ministries and departments. Section 6 identifies such ministries and departments and their potential role in mainstreaming gender.

Women’s access and use of urban transportation will play a key role in achieving India’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and ensure women’s right to the city and its public spaces. To quote Shreya Gadepalli, who leads the ITDP India Programme, “When we create cities – their public spaces and transport systems – that are responsive to the needs of women, children and the elderly, they become great cities for all!”

Download the policy brief here.

List of organisations that participated in the roundtable: Akshara Centre, Asian Development Bank, Azad Foundation, Breakthrough, Centre for Urban Equity (CUE), Confederate of Indian Industry (CII), Columbia Global Centre, Cornell University, CORO, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), Centre for Road Research Institute in India (CRRI), Centre for Women and Development Studies (CWDS), Delhi University, DIMTS, Hindustan Times, iTrans, Jagori, Janki Devi Memorial College (JDMC), KfW, Manas Foundation, Oak foundation, Oasis Design, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Plan India, Sushant School of Art and Architecture, Ansal University, Tata Institute for Social Sciences (TISS), Toji Communication Consultancy, TRIPP-IIT Delhi, UBER, UITP, UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, World Resources Institute (WRI)
This data is likely to under represent women and girls’ mobility as their care trips are not measured.