Planning measures for countering the use of personal cars in commuting trips : (a case study of Nehru Place, Delhi)

Abstract

In this 21st century, the world is facing many challenges and one of them is urbanization, which is resulting to the concentration of inhabitants in dense urban areas as well as increasing motorization. Today, numerous cities can be defined as an ‘automobile dependent’ with recognized high rates of automobile ownership and in specific private ownership. The private car has been established as a status symbol depicting wealth and accomplishment in life. The suburban development that reinforced the car culture permitted people to live in low density suburban areas that, although demanding an elongated commute, it remained cheaper in terms of land values. If we see the trend of motorization in India, pre and post Liberalization, in the early 20th century, India has witnessed the use of personal motor cars. While since 2002, car sales started on an increasing trend. By 7.64% growth, India is the highest rising passenger car market these days and it has been projected that India will be the third-largest passenger vehicle market by 2018, currently being at the fifth position. At present, road space gets allocated to whichever vehicle occupies it first. The focus is, therefore, the vehicle and not people. So, the result is that a bus is allocated only two and a half times the road space carrying 40 people as compared to car carrying only one or two persons. In this process, the lower sections of the socirty with low income groups effectively, are not able to pay, neither in terms of higher travel time and nor in terms of higher travel costs, for the unequal space allocated to personal vehicles. On account of serious threats to their safety the diverse users of non- motorized modes be likely to to be embraced out of the roads. If the emphasis of the standards of road space distribution were to be the people, then whatever the space is dedicated to PT now shall not be enough followed by allocation of much more space to PT. Thus, the real issue nowadays is the expanding of urban areas with high automobile dependency with established high rates of automobile ownership and in and specifically private ownership of cars. It is not likely to solve sustainability in metropolises without first addressing automobile dependency as well as disproportionate space allocation to personal cars. So, there is a need of planning measures in order to counter the tremendous increase in the usage of personal cars. If we can afford to to have a car, whether we can have the funds for it or not, that is the problem. Today, we have peoples now in the outside suburbs who are spending from place to place 40 per cent of their earnings on travel. Thus the trend of increasing Car Ownership as well as Car dependency majorly in the metropolitan cities is on the rise, where this study aims to develop framework for providing opportunities in order to encourage reduction in usage of personal cars in commuting trips. This study is mainly concerned about the possible strategies to reduce the usage of cars in urban mobility of metropolitan city, Delhi. Therefore, this study is being carried out in the Nehru Place, Delhi, being the large commercial, financial and business centre. The study has been limited to South East district, taking into consideration the South District RTO zone (Sheikh Sarai), where Nehru place belongs to one of the 26 areas of jurisdiction of this RTO zone. It has been analysed that Nehru Place is a confluence of informal and corporate labour, bringing 1,30,000 people and 32,000 vehicles daily from all corners of Delhi. It has also been identified that approximately 37612 people come by Car daily, followed by approximately 16353 cars come to Nehru Place on daily basis. So, 39% of the people visits by Car and up to 56% of the trips are made by Public Transport Modes like bus, metro and three-wheeled auto rickshaws while up to 44% of the trips are made by Cars and Two-Wheelers. The study area is characterized by the unlimited supply of parking provided in the area. While there are a few designated parking zones created in its precinct, vehicles are accommodated on the sidewalks and along the streets even after the designated parking lots are full. As a result of nominal parking charges, which promote more and more car users to use their personal modes of transport rather than public transport. Currently, unauthorized and illegal parking is the substitute through which Nehru Place attempts to meet parking demands in vacant areas and even on road side, making them inconvenient for moving traffic. Thus the efforts needs to be undertaken to evaluate solutions, increasing or creating supply of parking space will never help. The solution would be to reduce parking demand and simultaneously shift users to more high occupancy and ecofriendly modes of transportation. It is the need of the hour to restrict the usage of cars. This would be imaginable when either users have no/minimum parking spaces in Nehru Place or the parking fee is raised very high. Being a public transport centre, the approachability at the periphery of Nehru Place is very deprived due to steps, barricades, and spilled over parking. There are no entrance or departure signs, maps or info-graphics to direct visitors. Nehru Place is a hindrance way for pedestrians, and most discouraging for newcomers. This study is divided into four parts with respect to four objectives of the study. The first stage of the study identifies the major trip attractors for car-based commuters in the delineated study area. This stage is the foundation of the study where Literature review being the most important part basically deals with various factors of increasing automobile ownership over time as well as identifying the various effects of automobile ownership growth. Trend of increasing automobile ownership has also been studied by looking into Motorization in Pre & Post Liberalization, Trend of Population, Urban Population, Urban Workers by Economy Sector, Motorization and Economic Growth, Vehicle Population in India (Metropolitan Cities) , Car Ownership levels, Public Transport Investments, Parking Principles, etc. Under this objective Character of the study area has been studied and analysed followed by its Connectivity and accessibility, Parking Scenario – Demand & Supply as well as the ratio of Public to private vehicles. The various outcomes of this objective are the total no of trips attracted to the study area and what is the ratio of Car users and no of cars coming to the study area. The parking Mapping has been carried out followed by Parking charges scenario and Parking Supply Scenario This study has also looked into the accessibility mapping followed by various obstacles for pedestrians within the study area. The second stage of the study encompasses identification of the travel behaviour of personal motorized four-wheeler users commuting to the identified trip attractors within the study area. This stage comprises of identification of travel behaviour of personal motorized four-wheeler users, where car use study has been formulated by carrying out Consumer travel Behaviour study followed by various parameters like Car Acquisition Details, Work Trip Patterns, Commuting Trip Pattern and Opinions about Public Transportation. Two types of surveys were conducted in the study area targeting only car commuters coming to Nehru Place. The surveys conducted were in the form of questionnaire that captured Commuting and working Trip details, Socio - economic details followed by Likert scale questionnaire in order to access the perception and aspiration of the commuters. A total of 68 samples were taken based on “Random Sampling”. The confidence level was taken as 95% with 10% error correction. The outcomes of this study are that, who and how far do people travel to work, and how long does it take to travel to work followed by difficulties travelling to work. Also their Potential for modal shift has been observed taking into account the working patterns. The third stage encompasses, identification of the various factors that encourage and discourage the use of personal cars with reference to commuting trips attracted to the study area. In terms of personal characteristics; trip characteristics; factors related to comfort, convenience and safety; factors related to availability and service quality of alternative modes as well as factors related to parking, etc. has been incorporated. Under this stage, Factor identification related to commuters aspiration and perception regarding personal cars has been done through Likert scale questionnaire where various factors has been taken into consideration from the literature review and these factors have been analysed as well, which comprises of Monetary & Utility Considerations, Perception of Status, Negative image of nonmotorized & public modes and Peer Influence. (Banerjee, 2011) The outcome of this stage are followed by the factors that drive up Vehicle use and the factors that encourage and discourage the use of personal cars. Through this study, the perception and Aspiration that influence vehicle Choice process of the car commuters has also been studied. A total of 26 attributes were provided to mark on a 5 point Likert scale questionnaire. These attributes have been obtained through literature review, where the exploratory factor analysis on these responses to extract the most significant factors that influence the different perceptions on private vehicle ownership and use in the city has been carried out. These attributes are composed of Regulatory/Economic as well as Financial Measures to be adopted at city level. These attributes are designed to test the respondent’s perceptions in the following categories: perception of status, perceptions about the personal vehicle and other modes, responses to monetary considerations, peer influence, and miscellaneous. (Banerjee, 2011) Since this study is followed by a small sample size, no factor analysis has been carried out. Thus, the Likert Scale representation has been done for each identified factor. Through this representation and analysis, it has been identified that, majority of the Experts didn’t favoured that, increasing Fuel Taxes at City level would help followed by most of the of the Experts disagreed to Speed Reduction Techniques as City level Incentives. Whereas, few of the Experts couldn't say if Road Pricing could help to attain the respective objectives. It has also been identified that, all of the Experts agreed on adopting “Vehicle Quota System”, “Parking Pricing”, “Transit Encouragement”, “Walking & Cycling Encouragement” as well as Road Space Reallocation, these incentives/disincentives are the need of the hour according to them. Majority of the Experts think providing priorities to High Occupant Vehicle (HOV) would be a great incentive to reduce the usage of cars. While most of the Experts agreed on adopting other incentives like “Parking Space Certificate”, “Carbon Taxes”, “Congestion Pricing”, “Distance based Pricing”, “Pay as you Drive Insurance”, “Vehicle use Restrictions” as well as “Complete Streets”. The fourth stage identifies a set of appropriate incentives and disincentives at city level and study area level for countering the use of personal cars in commuting trips. This is characterized by the study of various global case studies, looking into the interventions they have adopted in the forms of incentives as well as disincentives. This stage is followed by Expert opinion survey as well as Commuter’s choice survey. On account of these, measures have been recommended at city level as well as study area level. A total of 20 samples were taken for commuter’s choice survey and the responses were recorded only for the car commuters. Various questions were asked taking into consideration the Regulatory/Economic as well as Financial Measures to be adopted at study area level. Commuters were asked about Commuter Financial Incentives, Parking Pricing, Congestion Pricing, and Preference to Public Transport, Opinions about hike in fuel price, Distance based pricing, Vehicle use restrictions, speed reduction techniques, High occupant vehicle priority followed by Pas as you drive insurance. It has been came into conclusion that majority of the Commuters would prefer Public Transport if these incentives would be adopted, where Parking Pricing and Congestion Pricing would results in Carpooling. Moreover, Hike in Fuel Prices won’t change commuters Travel Behavior. On account of the responses from experts as well as commuters, incentives as well as disincentives has been identified for the study area level as well as city level and the framework has been recommended taking into consideration these recorded strategies for providing opportunities in order to encourage reduction in Usage of Personal Cars in Commuting Trips.