From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Nov 18: The Bengaluru metro rail project is on track to complete 175 km of commute in the city by June 2025, said Anjum Parwez, Managing Director, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, on Friday.

Addressing a session on ‘the future of mobility’ at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2022, Parwez said as part of the second and third phase of the project, Bengaluru will have 314 km of metro rail connectivity by 2041.

He said construction of metro lines is progressing well on the Airport side.

The BMRCL Mangaging Director said the biggest challenge in urban mobility is the integration of multi-modal transport systems and to move people to get into public transport from personalised transport modes.

Parwez said urban India was the most neglected area until the 1990s as urban planning was not in sync with connectivity or mobility issues.

He said BMRCL is getting a lot of support from start-ups in mobility to ensure that commuters have the last-mile connectivity.

BMRCL is tying up with mobility providers to get people to reach the nodal point and to commute to their workplaces.

Anjum Parwez said the Namma Metro has recently gone digital with its payment options that include the use of QR code scans and UPI-based payment options which has met with good response from commuters. 

He said there is no waiting time for passengers who are in a hurry as there is no need to stand in the queues to buy tickets or cards now.

He said BMRCL is working on a transit oriented development where commuters live close to the stations and to the workplace.

Besides, he said BMRCL also intends to integrate all aggregators by bringing out a mobility card for commuters.

He said the corporation is in talks with BMTC to have bus stops at metro stations to help commuters hop on and hop off both modes of transport.

He said bike taxis and car-pooling should be encouraged although the government of Karnataka had put brakes on their operation.

BMRCL working on shopping options for commuters

The BMRCL is also working on introducing shopping options for commuters inside and outside the metro stations.

He said the BMRCL plans to sell office space in metro stations and provide end-to-end solutions to all the stakeholders.

Amit Bhatt, managing director, International Council on Clean transportation (ICCT) said urbanisation in India is 33% while it is about 80-85% in European and American countries.

He said about 66% of urban infrastructure is yet to be built in India as the country is set to see a number of cities being built.

The biggest challenge is to ensure zero emission, zero exclusion and zero accidents in urban transport, he said.

Vadiraj Krishnamurthy, vice president technology & innovation, Bosch Global Software Technologies, said the future is software defined fully programmable vehicles.

The key enablers of urban transport are the personalised multi-modal mobility, automated mobility, electrified and connected mobility. “Connecting vehicles using technology is an engineering challenge of the future,” he said.

Vinayak Bhavnani, co-founder and chief technology officer Chalo also spoke.