Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-5 (section)

=== Box 5.8 | Shifts from Private to Public Transport in an Indian Megacity ===

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In densely populated, fast-growing megacities, policymakers face the difficult challenge of preventing widespread adoption of petrol or diesel fuelled private cars as a mode of transport. The megacity of Kolkata in India provides a useful case study. As many as twelve different modes of public transportation, each with its own system structure, actors and meanings, co-exist and offer means of mobility to its 14 million citizens. Most of the public transport modes are shared mobility options, ranging from sharing between two people in a rickshaw or a few hundred in metro or sub-urban trains. Sharing also happens informally as daily commuters avail shared taxis and neighbours borrow each other’s car or bicycle for urgent or day trips.

Box 5.8

A key role is played by the state government, in collaboration with other stakeholders, to improve the system as whole and formalise certain semi-formal modes of transport. An important policy consideration has been to make Kolkata’s mobility system more efficient (in terms of speed, reliability and avoidance of congestion) and sustainable through strengthening coordination between different mode-based regimes ( [[#Ghosh--2019|Ghosh 2019]] ) and more comfortable with air conditioned space in a hot and humid climate ( [[#Roy--2018b|Roy et al. 2018b]] ). Policymakers have introduced multiple technological, behavioural and socio-cultural measures to tackle this challenge. New buses have been purchased by public authorities ( [[#Ghosh--2019|Ghosh and Schot 2019]] ). These have been promoted to middle class workers in terms of modernity, efficiency and comfort, and implemented using premium fares. Digitalisation and the sharing economy have encouraged take-up of shared taxi rides (‘app cabs’), being low cost and fast, but also influenced by levels of social trust involved in rides with strangers ( [[#Acheampong--2019|Acheampong and Siiba 2019]] ; [[#Ghosh--2019|Ghosh and Schot 2019]] ). Rickshaws have been improved through use of LNG and cycling has been banned from busy roads. These measures contributed positively to halving greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP tin one decade within the Kolkata metropolitan area, with potential for further reduction ( [[#Colenbrander--2016|Colenbrander et al. 2016]] ). However, social movements have opposed some changes due to concerns about social equity, since many of the new policies cater to middle class aspirations and preferences, at the cost of low-income and less privileged communities.

To conclude, urban mobility transitions in Kolkata show interconnected policy, institutional and socio-cultural drivers for socio-technical change. Change has unfolded in complex interactions between multiple actors, sustainability values and megatrends, where direct causalities are hard to identify. However, the prominence of policy actors as change agents is clear as they are changing multiple regimes from within. The state government initiated infrastructural change in public bus systems, coordinated with private and non-governmental actors such as auto-rickshaw operators and app cab owners, who hold crucial agency in offering public transport services in the city. The latter can directly be attributed to the global momentum of mobility-as-a-service platforms, at the intersection of digitalisation and sharing economy trends. More thoughtful action at a policy level is required to sustain and coordinate the diversity of public transport modes through infrastructure design and reflect on the overall direction of change ( [[#Roy--2018b|Roy et al. 2018b]] ; [[#Schot--2018|Schot and Steinmueller 2018]] ). See more in [https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/chapter/chapter-5 Chapter 5] Supplementary Material I, Section 5.SM.6.3.

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