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What is the issue?
For the transforming urban mobility need, countries need focus on not just E-vehicles but mass and shared transit capacity as well.
What differentiate advanced cities are not highways and flyovers, but rather quality side-walks and cycle ways.
Why are e-vehicles gaining importance?
- The regulations governing fuel efficiency and exhaust emissions were given increased push in the recent decades.
- Resultantly, a modern petrol or diesel car emits less than 5% of the harmful emissions of its predecessor from four decades ago.
- So now there are very less options to gain any further improvements from conventional engines.
- This has thus led to a wave of investment in Electric Vehicles (EVs), connected cars, autonomy and shared mobility.
What are the benefits?
- The focus of further improvements in EVs is in energy-density, power-density and cost of batteries.
- EVs have zero exhaust emissions and lower carbon emissions than conventional cars.
- So it is a suitable option for limiting the deterioration in urban air quality.
- They have fewer moving parts, potentially lowering cost of manufacture and extending useful life.
What are the larger concerns and solutions?
- Single occupant cars - Electric cars are alone not the panacea for urban mobility.
- In many cities a good fraction of rush-hour traffic comprises single occupant cars.
- This takes a toll on both space and energy, which could have otherwise been used by a larger number if shared.
- Cities like Singapore, New York and Tokyo seek to sustain high population densities and high economic activity per square km.
- They have therefore come to depend on mass transit and shared mobility and discourage use of private cars.
- Mobility solutions - The developments in digitised economy has facilitated many promising shared-mobility solutions.
- The new generation that is digital-friendly is growing comfortable with alternatives to car ownership.
- They increasingly employ varied mobility solutions and apps for motorisation.
- E.g. Uber and Ola have proven useful to many affluent urban commuters.
- Cities such as San Francisco and New York have extended this concept to vans, aggregating 10-12 passengers at a time.
- This results in further lowering of cost, energy use and carbon emissions per commuter.
- Inclusiveness - The wave of urbanisation in many countries has largely redesigned the cities as middle class spaces.
- Lower income groups have thus been forced to the peripheral suburbs.
- This has lowered their opportunities and increased the cost and time for commuting.
- The tenets that govern new mobility architectures must thus promote inclusive access to mobility.
- E.g. Mexico has defined mobility as a basic human right and this helps steer policies that are inclusive.
- Neglected modes - Many cities are also re-discovering neglected travel modes that are augmented with modern technology.
- Pedestrian zones and short passages are reappearing in cities like Seoul, Barcelona and New York.
- Bike-lanes and bike-sharing solutions are a growing trend in Amsterdam and Paris.
- There is a need for accelerating investments in these low cost and environment-friendly modes.
Source: BusinessLine