The future bus system

Everyone is talking about climate change. With the big meeting just 2 months away and no good deal in sight because of countries waiting of their counterparts to take the first step, it now becomes every individual’s responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint if the government can’t come up with a plan. One of the most advised methods are to use public transportation or use bio-fuels for household chores or ride a bicycle to work. Every responsible citizen wants to reduce their carbon footprint but why do we still find it so difficult to shift to public transportation? Didn’t we wish public transportation was more comfortable and fast? In India, there is no certainty of when the bus or trains would arrive or for how long you would be stuck in traffic as we don’t have separate lanes for buses or cycles. Riding a cycle in big cities like Delhi (in India) isn’t a safe option as most of the people have very little sense of traffic rules. With two wheelers available at prices as low as 550 USD and the cheapest car coming at 2000USD and inefficient bus transportation system, it just has become very easy for people to use personal vehicles rather than use public transport. 

The government understands this and since past few years it has made efforts to make public transportation much reliable than before.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

The bus rapid transit means a high-capacity transport system with its own right-of-way, which means high-capacity buses are operated in lanes reserved for their exclusive use. BRT system exists in many countries like Australia, Northern America, Europe, China, Indonesia, Brazil and a few more in South America. It’s a new concept in India with Pune being the first city in India to implement it in 2005. BRT system has been operational in Delhi since 2008 june. Several other states in India are also trying to replicate the idea of BRT system.

                                                                    

Roads constitute 20% of land in Delhi, the highest road to land ratio in the world. The number of motorized vehicles has increased by 9 folds since last 3 decades thus decreasing the average speed, increasing congestion and pollution. The need for BRT arose when it became clear that it makes no sense for the cars to occupy 70% of the road space given that they just move less than10% of people. BRT managed to provide cheap, efficient and fast means of communication but at the cost of slower movement of car traffic. According to TRIPP (Transport Research and Injury Prevention Programme), if people are stuck in jams in their cars, and see buses speeding by, they would realize that it is more costly to travel in car in terms of time.

                              

 

After the introduction of BRT system, the demand of travelling by buses has increased by 20% in those regions with BRT system. The average traveling time has reduced by almost 30mins and 80% of bus commuters have approved for BRT system in other parts of Delhi. These buses also run on CNG which further continues in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Total length of road that has been dedicated for BRT is a little less than 100k.m. The government has plans for 292k.m. of BRT by 2020.  But, I believe, if there could have been a 20% increase for just 100k.m, they should cover a larger portion as total road length of Delhi turns out to be over 28,000k.m!

BRT comes as an easy solution for the government to encourage public transportation as it costs 8 times less than construction of metros. The government also plans to increase its metro rail length to 493k.m by 2020 from the existing 128k.m long route.

It hasn’t been easy for the government to introduce BRT and has faced a lot of resistance from some sections of the society, and also want the government to scrap off the plan of BRT. Inspite of the approval by a large chunk of daily travelers, there voices remain unheard as majority are from the lower economic classes. This has slowed down the expansion process. Hopefully, people will understand its importance soon. 

 By,

Anindita Nayak

TH!NK ABOUT IT

Last week, I went for a 2-day conference, TH!NK ABOUT IT, in Copenhagen which was held by European Journalism Center. There were 90 other participants from over 20 different countries.

On the first day, all of us went to Bella Center. This is where this year’s most important treaty will take a new shape, the COP15. We started off with a brief speech by Svend Olling, Head of Department of COP15 Logistics on how they were tackling problems to ensure a good conference in December and their importance. Then we had a panel discussion on a journalist’s perspective on climate change with Tasha Eichenseher, editor of nationalgeographic.com; RameshJaura , director of Inter-Press Service Europa; Gerald Traufetter, editor of Spiegel magazine; Asbjorn Jorgenson, professor at Arhus school of Media and Journalism; Mads Christensen, Head of Greenpeace Nordic region and Andreas Barkman from European Environmental Agency and the Head of the Group for Climate Change Mitigation.

Ramesh Jaura spoke developing nations' stance on Green House Gases emissions and agreed that its not possible for them to cap their emissions when the question of economic development comes into picture. Tasha Eichenseher discussed about some of National Geographic influential stories, Gerald Traufetter worries that some journalists are restricted from taking sides in the matters of climate change and that it would hurt a journalist's credibility. Mads Christensen threw light on EU's efforts to mitigate GHG emissions and its success of reaching Kyoto Protocol's target of 8% less emissions than 1990 by 2010. Andreas from Greenpeace believes that developed, industrialised nations should try reducing their emissions by 40% by 2020 and developing nations by 15-30%. He wishes for a fair and ambitious deal at the end of COP15 though he doesnt see that from happening. He fears that COP15 will lead to greenwashed plan (a bad deal made to look good) thereby leading to faster growth in global temperatures and threatening the of survival of islands. Gradually the discussions grew on whether Sahara was greening because of climate change, Obama sounding no different from Bush, if science was a valid tool to convince people, if US was holding up UN meetings, pressure on media, et cetera.We were later joined by Francois Roudie, policy coordinator of European Commission who gave an insight on EU’s future goals and its past achievements. EU plans to increase its renewable energy use by 10%, reduce carbon emissions by 20-30%. With their existing regulation on energy performance standards for buildings, they plan to make buildings more efficient and sustainable. While he spoke about Europe reaching its Kyoto Protocol’s targets, he unfortunately couldn’t give a good justification of why weren’t they including carbon emissions produced by the goods they imported into their annual emissions.

In the afternoon, Soren Hermansen who was ‘TIME magazine’s Hero of the Environment 2008’ gave a presentation on Samsø Island. Samsø is a small island that in 1997 won the Danish government contests to become a model renewable energy community. Today all its power comes from the wind.The next day, we went to Dyssekilde, an eco-village. Dyssekilde is a small village of 120 people near Copenhagen that generates most of its own electricity and manages its own waste. They claim to have a better waste treatment plant than the municipal. They have over 30,000 willow trees to purify waste water. The houses are so designed that consumes energy as less as possible and villagers are encouraged to use organic products.

You can read more about Samsø Island and Dyssekilde from here:

http://www.wind-works.org/articles/SamsoeRenewableEnergyIsland.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sams%C3%B8

http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/09/saving-the-planet-in-dyssekilde.html

http://dyssekilde.dk/ix.asp?m=97

Anindita Nayak

Policy approach for Sustainable lifestyle

Today, Humanity uses over a third more resources than what nature can regenerate; the ecological deficit is widening. Levels of per capita consumption of developed world are considered unsustainable and inequitable. On the other hand million of people are dying due to hunger. And pressures on global resources are increasing from the emerging middle classes in developing countries, who aspire for consumer lifestyles of the west. In developing countries like India people are blindly following the life-style of west. They aspire to attain various lifestyles which are more or less consumer centric. People in rural area aspire to live the life of town and people of town aspire for Metro lifestyle.

Shifting behaviours in Developed and Emerging world to more sustainable lifestyles is proving difficult. Today a consumer’s choices are not isolated actions of rational decision-making Rather they are embedded in individual ideas about status and identity, influenced by contextual social forces, such as the media and advertising, and subject to larger structural features of the economy, environment, and policy. Policies, whether economic, environmental, or social, affect consumer choices. Moral suasion is most commonly used to motivate social change.

Moral suasion or social policy instruments currently used to support a shift in attitudes and behaviours fall into three groups:

1.     Information- To fill a perceived public information deficit on causes and consequences of environmental change and actions that individuals can take. Information instruments provide an “information wrap” around products (e.g., labels, environmental product profiles, standards) to influence consumer choice.

2.     social marketing/mass communications- encourage positive behaviour change by applying marketing principles to target audience interventions, usually involving mass media (e.g., energy conservation programs, recycling programs, and so forth)

3.     Education- support the inclusion of relevant content in teaching curricula at all levels of the formal education system. They also support non-formal processes to increase knowledge and understanding.

Economic signals usually equate a better quality of life with economic growth. But, is this an only criterion for better life? How about the social and moral quality? Better quality of life with ecosystems destroyed! Today people are starting to realise “Better Happy than Rich”.So there is an urgent need to take into consideration the changing lifestyles following different development trajectories of people belonging to the various classified settlement.This is time that we should think about the changing present development indicator (which are mainly based on consumption) to better suit the humanity and whole eco-system. Providing the livelihood security should not be at the cost of environment so there is need for Superimposition of livelihood security with the environment friendly methods and approaches.

By setting people on the course of making decisions that are right for sustainable development, many problems can be solved or avoided. The social instruments currently in place related to sustainable development are scattered, vary widely in terms of their intended audience, and often lack integration and long-term commitment.

Mechanisms to stimulate cleaner production, the polluter pays principle, are matters tried by policy maker but nobody had yet tries the Life-style issue in public policy making (Influencing consumer demand).Combinations of tools are needed and must work in concert. Information access, new technologies and supportive regulatory measures are required to make this planet sustainable. Rather than projecting environment as moral obligation or value system we should project this as a way to innovate. Citizens are less willing to take voluntary action unless they see positive examples set by government and, in particular, by business. Social instruments should lead to mutual change in preference to individual change; responses to instruments should be collective not just individual.