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.