With increasing congestion and traffic woes in the city, the only way forward from here on will be to use public and non-motorised transport, said V Tamizh Arasan, Retired Prof of the department of Civil Engineering from IIT-Madras. He delivered the annual E R R Thillainayagam Endowment Lecture on sustainable transport, organised by the The Institution of Highway Transport.
Highlighting the current and future scenario with respect to India’s demography, economy and energy consumption, Tamizh Arasan cited several government reports that said that transportation is the most rapidly growing consumer of the world’s energy. “According to a 2004 report by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 40 per cent of the world’s energy comes from petroleum and 21 per cent comes from natural gas,” said the well respected academician.
Hence, the only way forward is a way of sustainable development that is also concerned with making sure that the benefits are distributed equally among all sections of the society, he said. Tamizh Arasan outlined a plan that prioritised public and non-motorised systems of transport with separate bus lanes, sensor-activated traffic signals and also suggested a co-ordinated urban land use pattern.
He said that as transportation planning, social equity and environmental impact are turning out to be major issues in India, “the potential for non-transport to transport problems need to be explored as there is an urgent need for it.” He continued, “Providing good quality public transport is the key aspect of planning future transport systems. This will go a long way in minimising urban travel intensity and will reduce energy consumption considerably.”
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