Promoting active school transportation: a case of Mumbai city

Abstract

he mode of travel differs from individual to individual based on the demographic characteristics like age and gender, socio-economic background, surrounding environment, the purpose of the trip, and availability of the mode which makes the transportation system diverse and insufficient to meet the traveler’s satisfaction. The daily nuisance like traffic congestion and road accidents is generally observed to be at peak in developed metro cities where the number of private vehicles owned and used stands responsible causing delay and health issues along with deteriorating the environment. Having sufficient and safe transportation infrastructure has been recognized as a basic fundamental requirement for human by many government policies and initiatives. The daily trips which have a severe impact on the service and flow of the existing transportation system are work trips followed by educational trips and recreational trips. As observed throughout the country, educational trips stand second after-work trips responsible for peak hour traffic congestion which is generally neglected in many of the studies and policies. As everyone including parents, institutions, and government officials are bothered about providing a healthy environment in school but the integral aspect of transport to school remains un-attended leading to a rise in health issues like obesity and asthma in school-going children. As recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2011, there is a need for students to involve in 60 minutes of daily physical activities to maintain good health. The global statistics given by the Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network in 2017 mentioned that nearly around 1.20 lakhs students met with road fatalities out of 1.8% of students were under the age of 14 years. This, when compared to the statistics of India, carried out in a study of Road Accidents in India 2015 by Transport Research Wing, the fatalities were observed nearly around 20% (17,192) children falling under the age group of 0-18 years out of which 15,633 children died in road crashes. (G Gururaj & Gautham in 2017) stated that fatalities among the children due to the Road Traffic Injuries (RTIs) were more common with 45% share on city roads where 53.90% was observed in the urban areas. Various reports and newspaper articles cited that India has the highest number of road accidents in the world where Mumbai leads among the cities with a debatable dominance in overall accident deaths and non-fatal injuries of school students. Traffic congestion emerged as major issues faced by the country due to the daily school trips especially in the morning and afternoon peak hours where an unexpected number of students are driven by their parents either in the private vehicle or escorted in hired vehicles with pick-up and drop-off activities near school premises causing the traffic jam. The Tom-Tom index in Forbes Statista 2019, reported that Mumbai has come off resulting as the city with the worst traffic congestion level with 65% of congestion among the 53 countries worldwide. (Somit Sen in 2019) stated that Mumbai has the worst car density due to its shorter road span of 2876 km which is almost 5 times more when compared to Delhi, known for the highest number of private vehicles and having road spans of around 12780 km. The reason for this is explained by a report on the Greater Mumbai Region (GMR) by LEA Associates in 2016 where it was observed that the numbers indicating the private vehicle ownership have tripled within 15 years from 2001.