Green Star Ratings

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency, a department handled directly by India's PMO has introduced star ratings for privatly owened vehicles to determine the level of impact it has on the environment.

In my opinion, this is not a real effective policy to curb carbon emissions. Individuals are going to buy automobiles till the time they have the demand and capacity to pay for that demand.

Indian government should invest in alternative fuels and green technology; the government must also realize that there is lot of capacity in using waste fuel.

Eventually if the star rating is going to be determined by fuel efficiency, there is not going to any real favorable change in the state of the environment.

There must be a more effective model implemented, as star ratings are only going to raise the selling price of the automobile. As a whole this is going to disrupt the Indian automobile sector.

London and Mumbai Buses

This morning I happened to read an interesting article on the local traffic conditions in the city. The article was written by Ashok Datar, Mumbai based transport expert and environmentalist. On visiting his website www.mesn.org, I found some further interesting facts -

- London has a fleet of 8000 busses, making it one of the biggest in the world, with over 6,000,000 passenger journeys made every weekday

- As of today Mumbai has a BEST fleet of 3900 busses

In London, there are separate bus lanes and this motivates commuters to use the bus service. There are 6800 busses being utilized daily. The average capacity of a Routemaster (London public bus) is 72 passengers, for double-decker bus.

Whereas in Mumbai there are 4.6 million passengers using bus services daily. There are 3500 daily operational busses with an average carrying capacity of 71 passengers per bus.


Looking in comparison -

London - The bus transport usage is increasing rapidly over the years and has increased by 40% since 2001.

Mumbai - There is a need for initiatives such as Mayor's Transport Strategy to be developed.

London population is 7.5 million whereas Mumbai's population is 15 million and counting. With a young and growing population there would be tremendous pressure on public transportation systems. With this understanding, it is assured that buses will play a significant role in daily passenger commute. As a result, Mumbai BEST buses will have to cater to a growing population with increasing demand, improvement in per bus seating capacity, seprate bus lanes would have to be created and eventually make bus transport attractive and appealing.

Sources -  http://www.mesn.org/
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/
http://www.redbuseventtransport.co.uk/

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_g0BK6lHy5WM/SkHCcNSqK-I/AAAAAAAAA0c/Z5zH4g3-yXI/s800/BEST%20BUS%20MIRA%20ROAD.jpg

Sustainable Transport Developments in Mumbai

On 28-29th September, 2010, I attended a conference titled - The future of carbon financing schemes for sustainable transport: Mumbai paves the way. It was interesting meeting various individuals and companies amalgamated in their balanced efforts to make Mumbai a much more transport friendly and efficient place. These were some of the interesting revelations -

- Only 3 CDM projects have been approved of the 1224 proposed projects, which is only 0.24%

- 38% of India's population to live in cities by 2025

- Share of transport in petroleum consumption to increase from 51% in 2006-07 to 64% in 2030

- CO2 equivalent emission distribution from various sectors are as follows - Road - 87%, Aviation - 7%, Railways - 5% and Navigation - 1%, as of 2010.

- 78% of Mumbai's population makes use of public transport, while only 7% of Washington uses public transport and yet the number and nature of state operated public transport projects fail to cater efficiently

Solutions include launching the Mumbai Metro, Mumbai Monorail, BRTS and mutiple skywalks. These are financially voluminous projects, though certain preliminary attempts are making Mumbai a sustainable and green city.

One Year of Blogging

Today the blog turns one year in age and time.

It has been an amazing experience and look forward to pursue sustainable transportation as an area of blogging for years to come!

Free Car Parks

Reading an article on www.nytimes.com came to my realisation the simple implication or the role that car parks play in a metropolitan.

Written by Tyler Cowen, economics professor at George Mason University, mentions - by increasing parking costs in public parking spaces, automobile owners would be a whole lot more conscious about their driving habits.

This would culminate into sensible and timely use of their cars. Which would act as a means to cut emissions, ease traffic tensions and also improve land use.

Directly imposing the cap and trade system or a direct carbon tax might not be acceptable for majority of the world. Thus, implementing a policy which ensures a cost to parking is a small though effective means to reduce carbon emissions.

Neat thought!



Photo Link - http://www.cweb1.co.uk/

Hybrid Planes

Aeroscraft ML866, a prosposed hybrid airship to be built by the Worldwide Aeros Corporation.

Hybrid planes are to determine the future of air and even space flight. These planes are of different characteristics.

It basically means an alternative means to propel the engine, which would be even more fuel efficient and sustainable in nature, from the existing modes of flight fuel. This is done by including the aerodynamic lift to the body and fixing lighter-than-air (LTA) technology. As a result these planes would be light weight

There have been concept flights made and all of which have been successful.

Picture taken from - http://www.momist.com/uploaded_images/Aeroscraft-ML866-706360.jpg

Electric Planes

In the essence of hybrid, solar and electric automobiles, there has been a distinct critical effort in making air transportation green and e-friendly.

Similar to electric vehicle technology, aviators are being designed in ways that the propellers save energy, boosting the batteries while descending, as seen in electric cars while braking.

Also, hybrid aircrafts use a small combustion engine as a "range extender", generating power to the electric motor.

Here are two examples -



Yuneec International - http://yuneeccouk.site.securepod.com/



Lange Aviation - http://www.lange-aviation.com/

Pictures taken from - http://gabinete.org.ar/Setiembre_2009/yuneec-e430.jpg and http://news.cnet.com/i/ne/p/2008/Antares20E_550x412.jpg

TM - TMC

Toyota Motors Corporation


Tesla Motors



Tesla Motors and Toyota Motor Corporation have decided to venture into producing electric vehicles, parts, and production system and engineering support.

Toyota's efforts at spreading green transport habits have been a distinct hit, seen by the 2.5 million hybrid Prius sales since 1997. Now, they find sense in expanding the periphery by introducing electric vehicles to the existing sustainable transport market. At the same time, Tesla would experience a new market. The cost of these Tesla vehicles would be marginalized to make them "affordable" and produce a demand in new markets. The venture is backed by Toyota purchasing $50 million of Tesla shares.

This venture will instill the reality of global warming across nations.

Response to Education Times articles

I am grateful to all those who read my articles in The Education Times and I would like to highlight what they had to say -

1) "Saahil has done a wonderful job! Congratulations!!"

- Professor Sanjay Deshmukh, Head of Life Sciences Department, Mumbai University

2) "Good effort. Cogent. Practical and will connect well with the young readers."

- Indrajit Gupta, Editor, Forbes India

3) "I was delighted to read your articles in the Education Times special edition.
They are practical and well researched and written. Its quite a coup getting so
much print space. You make us proud!!"

- Manjula Rao, Climate Change coordinator, British Council, India

4) "Excellent article, has highlighted problems concerning power, energy, global
warming. You have explained these issues with household appliances. More
importantly, suggested solutions on it. I feel some hope for the globe when I
see young and sensible boys like you who are raising their voice for a better
tomorrow."

- Vikas Naik, Private Assistant to Editor in chief, Loksatta

5) "Hi, congrats! Very informative article, well writen and in good style. Lots of
good wishes."

- Doctor Meena Dave, Senior executive, Pharmaceutical industry

6) "Hi Saahil, my heartiest compliments for freshness of ideas and positive thinking
about Mumbai's environment friendly traffic by 2025. Such positive ideas are
indeed comendable and make Mumbai a better place to live in. I myself have seen
the transformation of Delhi from a gas chamber to a liveable city, with more and
more CNG buses and Delhi Metro. in Arizona, USA there is a seperate lane on
highways for bicycles, though its use is very limited. Probably, more important
is awareness about environment. Brilliant ideas from thinking youngsters. Keep
it up. Tomorrow is yours."

- Jyotindra Shah, President, Sevenseas enterprises

7) "Hi Saahil. I read your article. I quite liked it since it did not suggest big
things for power conservation but simple and managable steps that can be
practiced on individual level. Keep it up and keep writing."

- Harshada Pote, MSc Physics, Kalina University

8) "Hey Saahil! Very nice work on the article! It seemed professional. Keep up the
good work! Cheers!"

- Dinakar Kulkarni, D.J Sanghvi College of Engg, Mumbai University


I thank everyone above.

Education Times article on Sustainable Transportation

This is my article on sustainable transportation. It is focused on sustainable transport in India.

Education Times Article - 'Switch Off'

This is my article published in The Education Times, a Times of India product. It has been published on the occasion of World Environment Day. This article is on power conservation and consciousness on electricity use age.

World Environment Day 2010

Today is the 5th of June and is the World Environment Day. The first World Environment Day was on 5th June, 1973. On this date the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began.

Kigali, Rwanda is the host city this year and the theme is 'Many Species. One Planet. One Future', focussing on Biodiversity. There would be three days of events including community events, concerts, beach clean up drives, exibhits and film festivals.

Photo taken from - http://s.www.liveearth.org/liveearth/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/index.jpg

Beer Bike

Beer Bike in Munich park




















Beer Bikes are the most innovative means of human powered transport. These are bikes powered by 8 to 10 persons. They are used as sight seeing attractions in and across European cities, such as Munich, Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt and London.

The fact that they are used as an attractive means of transport also portrays their practical usage.

Second picture taken from - Travelhouseuk’s Travel Blog

Zero - Zero

Shai Agassi, a visionary and the founder of Better Place, the world’s leading electric vehicle services provider, designs a solution to run an entire country without oil, before oil runs out.

He has done so through 4 easy sets –

Element I

Government Policies – Israel’s government set goals to promote zero oil cars. This was done by levying a tax differential of 60 %, which was, 72% tax on gasoline cars and 10% tax on zero emission cars applicable till 2019. Eventually when people buy the zero emission cars, they raise the tax for both sorts of vehicles, and once they achieve a tax revenue of 50% off these cars they are set.

Element II

Automobile Industry Support – Setting up Better Place or electric car charging stations across Europe in alliance with Renault-Nissan. A distinct feature would be replaceable batteries, whereby batteries could be exchanged” if you would want to go beyond the distance of a single battery”.

Thus looking at long distance travel, a way to sustain the electric cars would be by exchanging the depleted battery for a new fully charged battery, at “swap stations”. Eventually leading to mass production of such cars be 2011.

Element III

Building a Charging Infrastructure – This is done by having electric parking lots or spots, be it home, office or downtown. Thus you leave your car at the parking place once you are back to the spot the car is fully charged.

As this is an initiative along side Renault-Nissan there has been an innovative pricing model developed, just like those seen by the mobile service providers!

This is the zero – zero model, which is “zero emission, zero dollars to drive.”



Element IV

Seed Capital – Shai Agassi has raised $200 million through venture capitalists across Israel, Denmark and the USA, in order to create a charging infrastructure.

Thus with cars, policies, network and money bought together Mr. Agassi’s dream has taken shape.

Catching from an interview published in The New York Times, Mr. Shai Agassi says “I am passionate about the fact that we can get to the point where we use zero oil for most of our cars.”

The best part, “not a single bit of new science required, no research, nothing.”

Information gathered from www.betterplace.com, http://shaiagassi.typepad.com/ and The New York Times.

Transportation in Asia: 2030

Boeing – 9000 new commercial jets for Asia- Pacific region by 2028

Boeing – Asia- Pacific region to represent 40% of world’s aviation passenger market

Automobile industry – China and India will rank 1 and 3 respectively as the world’s largest automobile industries by 2030

Currently China produces 13 million cars and by 2030 it would have produced 62 million cars.

Meanwhile, India produced 2.5 million cars in 2009 and would have +20 million cars in 2030

Railways – There would be a visible development of high speed rail links to create low-carbon alternatives to short- haul flight.

Waterways – Asia has 37 waterways. The scarcity of clean water and increasing levels of on-land transportation is going to shift a major part of transport dependency on water transportation, in the near future.

As a whole, current ownership of private automobiles is 650 million units. By 2050 private ownership would be 3 billion units. I wonder from where these units are going to be produced and sold, as, American and European automobile markets are already exhausted. Irrespective of growing demand from BRIICS (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa) nations, 3 billion is too great a number for the earth to bear.

Here is a little futuristic fact – Transport related carbon dioxide emissions are to increase by 58% to 2030.

There is a need for innovations in the transport sector. The transport sector needs to become sustainable through – technology, government policies, pricing, integrated systems management, and this must be done urgently!

This upload is a gathered piece of information from – The Time Magazine, Global Asia and from www.oecd.org

Indian Union Budget 2010

The Finance Minister


This morning as I was watching The Budget, it took me a while to understand the reason behind the uproar of the Parliament. The primary reason behind the hulla-bulla was The Finance Minister - Pranab Mukherjee's decision to hike petrol and diesel prices by 1 rupee per litre and even an overall increase in the M.R.P of passenger automobiles.

I do not know if I would have reacted in a similar way, like the Opposition did, though I would for certain have responded against his preceding statement -

"To remedy the difficulty faced by manufacturers of electric cars and vehicles in
neutralising the duty paid on their inputs and components, a nominal duty of 4 per
cent on such vehicles imposed. Some critical parts or sub-assemblies of such
vehicles exempted from basic customs duty and special additional duty subject to
actual user condition. These parts would also enjoy a concessional CVD of 4 percent."

All of this due to the rising costs these companies are facing is not asserting whether costs would curb via the duty, in the future.

I do not think this is the right way to go about such a situation. If costs are mounting, the government should assure there is no tax on the import of such components and parts of these vehicles.

The positive development announced at The Union Budget was -

"A concessional excise duty of 4 per cent provided to “soleckshaw”, a product
developed by CSIR to replace manually-operated rickshaws. Its key parts and
components to be exempted from customs duty."

These are going to be the solar powered, public transport vehicles, known as the rickshaw.

Its only time which can tell whether these developments are going to be taken in the bright light!

Mumbai Invites the World to Cycle

An advertisment in the Asian Age, dated 19th February, 2010




It has been nearly over 12 hours since yesterday's cyclothon, here in Mumbai, India.

I am very proud to blog this development, as yesterday - 21st February, 2010, Mumbai hosted India's first ever national bicycle rally.

Participants included individuals and groups from around the world and it culminated into a +7000 people cycling for a green cause.

The rally which had a finish line and a winner ran across a stretch of 100 kilometers.

It was a proud moment for many, to have met their professional bicycle idols, the trademark dabbawalls to have cycled on the Sea Link, people of all ages biking alongside one another.

Eventually there were suggestions for the event to become an annual affair!



The event dated, 21st February, 2010

First Bicycle Mall of India

Lifecycle (Scanned from Business Standard)


Pune, the city which was once known as the 'city of bicycles', is home to Lifecycle, India's first and biggest bicycle mall ever, launched on 27th January, 2010.

The mall is spread out over a 6,000-square feet area and houses a buffet of international bicycle brands. The brands come from America, England, France, Germany and Japan, and include Firefox, Trek, Giant, Schwinn, Ducati and many more.

Ulhas Joshi (also founding member of a cycling group 'Zenof') and Manish Sabde are the promoters of Lifecycle mall, in an interview with Business Standard, Joshi says, " We started Lifecycle store out of our passion for cycling.....Cycling connects you to nature, it keeps you healthy and most importantly it is pollution free."

To attract individuals and groups to take up cycling they have organized cycling holiday concepts under the name of Guardian Cycling Holidays, with tours around Switzerland, England and Sri Lanka!

Janmarg - A BRTS marvel

Janmarg


On January 12, 2010 was held the prestigious Award for Sustainable Transportation by The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). The entry to make it through was, the only Asian nomination, Janmarg the BRT System from Ahemdabad!

This is the first complete BRTS in India and the entire South of Asia. For such a mechanism to be recognized at an international level, amongst 4 other nominee means a high level of proficiency and city management. The system includes - electronic fare collection, central control, level boarding, pre-pay stations and segregated lanes.

India houses 18% of the world's population thus this development is a marvelous example to curb air pollution through transportation and provides a great deal of encouragement.

I happened to read an article about the nomination of the BRTS in The Khaleej Times dated January 1, 2010 and its been a matter of content to learn of the result.



















Janmarg Route


Links to the 2 photos - http://www.itdp.org/images/ebulletin/janmarg3_large.jpg and http://ahmedabadbrts.com/About_JanMarg.html

Hong Kong Public Transportation

These are a few pictures, of the various modes of public transportation found in Hong Kong. The idea behind showing someone these pictures is plainly behind the fact that the citizens of Hong Kong are very proud of their public transportation system.

I travelled by all of these modes of conveyance and was very pleased by the way in which they operate. The roads and highways are very broad and smooth, the vehicles as a result cruise at an average of around 80 kms/hr and waterways, trams and buses feel very clean and are truly an experience. Most important, there is a very positive civic sense and responsibility towards public infrastructure.

Though, as per local yardsticks of evaluation here is what the local supercar honcho Benjamin Lam, chairman of the Porsche Club Honk Kong had to say, “the traffic is not very good in Hong Kong." Further mentioning, “You've got traffic jams everywhere, even at 3:00 am. And the public transportation is very good, so you don't even really need a car.”

I read this in the daily local, South China Morning Post, dated January 2, 2010.















Roadways














Tram and Bus


















Taxi














Local Ferry

Link to the picture - http://vincentvanderveken.com/wp-content/photos/HongKong2/5-star-ferry.JPG




Local Train

Happy New Year 2010

I spent my New Year's in Hong Kong with family. Hong Kong is a beautiful country (and part of China). Here on, a few of my postings are going to be on Asian consciousness on green transportation.