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Indian cities are fast growing in population.
I mean, there are reports that are saying that our urban population is going to go from 300 million to 700 million by 2030.
With this urbanization what comes is motorization.
Vehicles are increasing at three times the rate of the people.
It’s a space problem now. There is just not enough space to accommodate this huge growth in vehicles.
Auto-rickshaws form significant mode shares in most Indian cities.
Mumbai has about 120,000 auto-rickshaws.
About 80 – 85 percent of the city’s population really uses the rickshaws.
Regular users of rickshaws are people who can’t or don’t want to compete with the limited supply of public transport.
Auto-rickshaws are a very convenient mode of transport to get to places where your other forms of transport can’t reach.
Even if I have to catch trains or something like that ...
I can just get out of my house, take an auto-rickshaw and reach a station much faster.
It allows you to travel internally, within a suburb. It makes you go to places as soon as possible.
They are cheaper. They are better. They can go anywhere.
Because of their size it is very easy for them to go in and out of lanes.
They are a very important part of day to day transportation.
You can hail them. You can get on one immediately. They run by the meter.
I can walk out of my house and go anywhere I want to at any time of day.
When we talk about refunds in the auto-rickshaw sector ...
We have to look at the role that auto-rickshaws play in the urban transport system.
According to the national urban transport policy, auto-rickshaws have an important role to play ...
And should be thought of as part of an integrated public transport system.
You hear a lot of problems about, sort of, fair haggling and fair negotiations.
I think the most important thing is actually to ensure that auto-rickshaw guys don’t refuse potentials.
That’s the major problem in Mumbai.
Sometimes when you really need to go to someplaces they blankly refuse to go ...
Just because the place is close by and they can find some other passenger who would want to travel further away.
The challenges are multi-pronged and somebody will have to show leadership to be able to bring about change ...
Because the fact remains that there definitely is a felt need for improvement in auto-rickshaw services.
Having better access to auto-rickshaws at major transit hubs, for example, rail stations ...
Improving services so that there are no refusals or overcharging, better cuing ...
And there have been some pilot initiatives that have looked into the introduction of GPS devices ...
To enable call-based auto-rickshaw services, which could have far-reaching effects in improving services.
A good example for improvement in the auto-rickshaw space is what happened to the taxi industry in Mumbai.
They passed the Fleet Taxi Enactment Act.
Bringing in some sort of fleet management, fleet control into the auto-rickshaw business ...
Will truly help extract all the efficiencies, all the economies of scale that you get from fleet management.
The auto-rickshaw market is growing in size.
The government is, sort of, turning its head away from the problems ...
And what it results in is, sort of, bad experiences for the drivers, for the commuters, and for the environment as a whole.
Recognizing the role that auto-rickshaws play in sustainable urban transport ...
And the important role they also play in meeting the daily commute needs ...
Will go a long way in improving the conditions for drivers, as well as passengers ...
And will result in benefits for Indian cities as a whole.
Auto-rickshaws are shared vehicles.
Given that their impact on space, on the environment is much smaller, they have a big role to play in sustainable transport.
So it’s important that they stay.