abhishreshthaa
Abhijeet S
POLICIES TO ACHIEVE A SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT SYSTEM
Transport-Energy Database Generation and Use
The database available for the transport sector in India and its energy use is acutely inadequate and even imprecise, particularly in the case of the road sector which is the major consumer of transport energy. This is mainly because freight transport via roads is handled mostly by small-scale operators from the private sector. Passenger transport by roads is shared between state transport undertakings, and a large number of private bus and transit operators.
It is also widely diffused amongst private owners of cars and ATWs. In contrast, the railway and air sectors, perhaps because they are under centralized management, maintain comprehensive databases for their own planning and other uses.
Taken together, the available transport sector database leaves wide gaps in information essential for demand forecasting, analysis of alternative modal, fuel, technology and investment choices, and identification of least-cost solutions, of economic, social, environmental and energy costs, of operator, user and resource costs, and of optimal price, subsidisation, taxation and other fiscal policies.
It is also not possible to work out total or modal demand relations with prices, investments or incomes or various policy choices. Above all, the commonly available data is concerned only with direct energy consumption for traction (‘‘operating energy’’).
Demand Management
There are many ways of sustaining economic growth with lower growth in passenger kilometres (pkm) and tonne kilometres (tkm), i.e., there are many ways of reducing the transport elasticity of GDP. For example, improved land-use planning and the matching of jobs, schools, shopping centres and transport corridors to the location of residential areas could significantly reduce urban trans-port demand.
Better telecommunication facilities also reduce the demand for transport. Demand management is primarily a matter of government policies and actions such as those concerning pricing, taxation and imports, land-use and urban planning, public transport, support systems, industrial policies, attention to non-motorised and non-transport options, development of alternative fuels and institution of administrative and regulatory measures.
Transport-Energy Database Generation and Use
The database available for the transport sector in India and its energy use is acutely inadequate and even imprecise, particularly in the case of the road sector which is the major consumer of transport energy. This is mainly because freight transport via roads is handled mostly by small-scale operators from the private sector. Passenger transport by roads is shared between state transport undertakings, and a large number of private bus and transit operators.
It is also widely diffused amongst private owners of cars and ATWs. In contrast, the railway and air sectors, perhaps because they are under centralized management, maintain comprehensive databases for their own planning and other uses.
Taken together, the available transport sector database leaves wide gaps in information essential for demand forecasting, analysis of alternative modal, fuel, technology and investment choices, and identification of least-cost solutions, of economic, social, environmental and energy costs, of operator, user and resource costs, and of optimal price, subsidisation, taxation and other fiscal policies.
It is also not possible to work out total or modal demand relations with prices, investments or incomes or various policy choices. Above all, the commonly available data is concerned only with direct energy consumption for traction (‘‘operating energy’’).
Demand Management
There are many ways of sustaining economic growth with lower growth in passenger kilometres (pkm) and tonne kilometres (tkm), i.e., there are many ways of reducing the transport elasticity of GDP. For example, improved land-use planning and the matching of jobs, schools, shopping centres and transport corridors to the location of residential areas could significantly reduce urban trans-port demand.
Better telecommunication facilities also reduce the demand for transport. Demand management is primarily a matter of government policies and actions such as those concerning pricing, taxation and imports, land-use and urban planning, public transport, support systems, industrial policies, attention to non-motorised and non-transport options, development of alternative fuels and institution of administrative and regulatory measures.