PROMOTING LOW CARBON TRANSPORT IN INDIA LOW-CARBON COMPREHENSIVE MOBILITY PLAN RAJKOT 2011 - 31 PROMOTING LOW CARBON TRANSPORT IN INDIA Low – carbon Comprehensive Mobility Plan: Rajkot Authors Lead author: Dr. Talat Munshi (Associate Professor, CEPT University) Contributing Authors: Kalgi Shah, Anusha Vaid, Vimal Sharma, Kenny Joy, Sayan Roy, Deepali Advani and Yogi Joseph (Research Associates at CEPT Research and Development Foundation) November 2014 UNEP DTU Partnership Technical University of Denmark This publication is part of the ‘Promoting Low-Carbon Transport in India’ project. ISBN: 978-87-93130-24-1 Photo acknowledgement Front cover photos: Authors’ own photographs Disclaimer: The findings, suggestions and conclusions presented in the case study are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to UNEP DTU Partnership or the United Nations Environment Programme, nor to the institutions of individual authors. i Foreword Rajkot, like many other cities in India continues to grow rapidly, with expansion in economy, spatial extent and population. This has led to fast urban growth and urbanization related pressure on infrastructure including urban transport. Even though the present emission levels in Rajkot are within prescribed standards, there is a growing concern about vehicular emissions. Low-carbon Comprehensive Mobility Plan for the city of Rajkot is one of the initiatives that we have supported with the overall aim of achieving sustainable development. The plan integrates transport, land use and environment for current times as well as models it for the future. The strategies proposed in the report to support walking, bicycling and public transport are very relevant and well-founded. This has been possible as the consultants have correct and concurrent planning methods and were able to prepare a transport model for the city which has enabled decision-making in the direction of sustainable transport in Rajkot. It is a pleasure that Rajkot was selected for this initiative by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). We are grateful to CEPT University for carrying out the study in such detail, guiding us and driving the future urban and transport development of Rajkot. Mr. Ajay Bhadoo IAS 20-April-2014 Municipal Commissioner Rajkot, Gujarat. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, we would like to thank CEPT University for giving us the platform of research for deriving a new methodology for comprehensive mobility plans, and also for giving us the infrastructure for carrying out such work. We wish to thank Mr. Ajay Bhadoo, the Municipal Commissioner of Rajkot, and Ms. Alpana Mitra for their immense cooperation throughout the project. We found the staff in Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) and Rajkot Urban Development Authority (RUDA) to be very enthusiastic about this new initiative that was taken up in their city. They were very kind and helpful in sharing the data, especially the land use and property tax data in GIS readable format. We thank the LCMP methodology team, including Dr. Geetam Tiwari and Prof. Darshini Mahadevia, for the methodology and the set of indicators, which proved to be immensely useful during the analysis. We would also thank Mr. Sarath Guttikunda for conducting a workshop on the Sim-Air model and for helping us derive emission-related numbers. Our special thanks to Mr. Subhash Dhar from UNEP DTU Partnership for coordinating the project and managing the national event held in Udaipur as well as other meetings and workshops held throughout the project duration. We would like to thank Mr. Vijay Anadkat, Mr. Rutul Joshi, Mr. Bhargav Adhvaryu and Ms. Rutool Sharma from CEPT University for participating in discussions on the project. We are also grateful to Mr. Kenny Joy, Mr. Sayan Roy and Ms. Deepali Advani for editing and proofreading the report. Last, but not least, we would like to thank the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India for appreciating this ‘Low-carbon Comprehensive Mobility Plan’ and including it in the revised toolkit for preparation of comprehensive mobility plans. Authors iii Preface A low-carbon mobility approach requires clear and innovative thinking about city futures in terms of the reality (what is already there), desirability (what we would like to see), and the role that transport can (and should) play in achieving inclusive sustainable cities. The increasing dependency on motorised vehicles and higher risks to non-motorised and public transport users is restricting the safe mobility and accessibility of all urban residents and specifically people from the lower income group. This is threatening the urban environment and contributing to growing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. There is a need for planning that can ensure safe mobility and accessibility for people irrespective of their socio-economic background in a way that does not compromise the environment. India, in its National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) (2008), has identified sustainable urban planning as one of the levers for reducing emissions. Ongoing initiatives at the city-level that support such planning efforts are the Comprehensive Mobility Plans (CMPs), which are being made a prerequisite for support under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM). The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Government of India (GoI) provides guidelines for preparing CMPs (Ministry of Urban Development & Asian Development Bank, 2008). The CMPs submitted by cities and approved by MoUD have, however, been unable to address the effectiveness of various strategies in achieving sustainability goals. Further, the CMPs consistently lack strategies for enabling safe and secure mobility and accessibility for all groups of people (TERI, 2011). Detailed analysis of the impact of transport projects on sustainability and meeting the travel demand of all city residents, including the poor, the underprivileged and women, is missing in the CMPs. Sometimes, the CMPs assume that the benefits of large-scale projects percolate equally to everyone in society, irrespective of gender, income or housing conditions. The CMP methodology lacks an approach for the quantification of CO2 mitigation from the various scenarios. The LCMP was envisaged as an effective decision-making tool that would develop low-carbon mobility scenarios, identify projects that would pave the way, and earmark JnNURM funding for implementation. The UNEP Transport Unit (www.unep.org/transport) in Kenya, UNEP DTU Partnership (www.unepdtu.org) in Denmark, and partners in India embarked on a new initiative to support low- carbon transport in India. The three-year project was funded under the International Climate Initiative of the German Government, and was designed in line with India’s NAPCC. This project aimed to address transportation growth, the development agenda and climate change issues in an integrated manner by catalysing the development of a Transport Action Plan at the national-level and Low-Carbon Mobility plans at the city level. Key local partners included the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Cooperation between the Government of India, Indian institutions, UNEP, and the Government of Germany assisted in the development of a low-carbon transport framework resulting in the formulation of the Low-carbon Comprehensive Mobility Plan (LCMP). iv The LCMP methodology was prepared by IIT Delhi, IIM, Ahmedabad, and CEPT University, Ahmedabad. This methodology has been applied in preparing LCMPs for three cities: namely Rajkot, Vishakhapatnam and Udaipur, produced by CEPT University, iTrans and the Urban Mass Transit Company (UMTC) respectively. All three cities had different experiences during the study, and their findings were incorporated into the plan. The proposed LCMP methodology, incorporated into the revised CMP (Ministry of Urban Development, 2014), amends the existing approach and methodology of preparing the CMP. The LCMP adds the additional indicators of inclusiveness and measurements of carbon emissions from transport to the existing methodology of CMP prepared by the MoUD to make urban transport inclusive and low-carbon, and thus truly sustainable. v Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................ ii Preface ................................................................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables and Figures ..................................................................................................................................... viii Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................................................ xiii Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................................. xiv Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Background ...................................................................................................................................................