Urban mobility in practice means considering urban and transport planning together to avoid, shift and improve transport. The concept being people-centric, the mobility solutions need to be tailored accordingly by taking in to account economic, environmental and societal impacts.
Contemporary urban mobility trends encompassing high dependence on individual car ownership and fossil fuels, have created high levels of congestion leading to wasted time and lost productivity, as well as pollution, noise, heat-island effects, and the depletion of finite resources. With rapid urbanization worldwide the need for more effective urban mobility solutions are pressing.
This live discourse brings stories, researches, and opinions revealing urban mobility challenges, trends, planning, and technological directions, and imperative basics that need to be addressed.
Part of the “Future Proofing Your Business” hub at the World Congress, this roundtable focused on understanding the future urban mobility landscape.
Many city authorities are debating or implementing vehicle bans, in efforts to better manage congestion, pollution, and urban planning. Yet city populations are growing and demanding both fresh produce and efficient transport. How can the authorities cope with these competing demands? How should transport operators work with city authorities? What policy measures and incentives are working in different parts of the world? Read more...
PASSENGER #DRONES READY FOR TAKE-OFF: #Urban air #mobility poised to become a fast-growing new market. For more @RolandBerger https://t.co/4coTzc6UZw
— Claus Hammer (@claus_hammer) March 14, 2019
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the prime minister, has approved Phase-IIIA of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project. The total estimated cost of the project will be Rs 30,849 crore with completion cost at Rs 3,3690 crore. The project is likely to be completed in five years, a statement from the government said.
The project will include the introduction of air-conditioned coaches with automatic doors to improve comfort level and safety of commuters, the statement said. "Seamless travel for long distance suburban passengers by extending and creating corridors. Improvement in passenger amenities improved passenger movement at stations. Decongestion of entry/exit at the stations," the statement said listing the benefits of the project.
It will also include the communication-based train control system. The Mumbai suburban railway network on Central and Western Railways has 385 route-km. There are five corridors, two on Western Railway, two on Central Railway and one on Harbour Line.
Every day about 8 million people travel in the suburban sections in more than 3,000 train services. There is severe overcrowding in the suburban trains and during peak hours, a number of passengers carried are more than four times the carrying capacity.
Paris and Hong Kong for the first time joined Singapore as the world's most expensive cities to live in, a study revealed on Tuesday, with utilities and transport driving up the cost of living.
Zurich, Geneva and Japan's Osaka trailed closely, with emerging market cities like Istanbul and Moscow plummeting down the ranking due to high inflation and currency depreciation, said the Economist Intelligence Unit's bi-annual survey of 133 cities. It was the first time in more than 30 years that three cities shared the top spot, a sign that pricey global cities are growing more alike, said the report's author, Roxana Slavcheva.
"Converging costs in traditionally more expensive cities... is a testament to globalization and the similarity of tastes and shopping patterns," she said in a statement. "Even in locations where shopping for groceries may be relatively cheaper, utilities or transportation prices drive up the overall cost of living," she said.
Rising costs in cities are often driven by a vibrant job market attracting skilled workers with high wages, said Anthony Breach, an analyst with the British think tank Centre for Cities - which was not involved in the study. Urban planners need to plan ahead and build more housing to keep prices affordable and overall costs down, Breach told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
For the EIU survey, researchers compared the cost of more than 150 items such as cars, food, rent, transport and clothing in 133 cities. A woman's haircut was about $15 in Bangalore, India, compared to $210 in New York, for example, while a bottle of beer was about half a dollar in Lagos, Nigeria, and more than $3 in Zurich.
British cities recovered a few positions a year after reaching the cheapest level in more than two decades due to Brexit uncertainty, with London ranking 22nd and Manchester 51st, up eight and five spots respectively. Political turmoil in Venezuela plummeted Caracas to the bottom of the ranking, followed by Damascus, Syria, with Karachi, Pakistan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and New Delhi also featuring among the 10 cheapest cities.
But a city's drop in the index does not necessarily mean life automatically gets cheaper for people living there, as prices adjust to inflation often quicker than wages, said Gunes Cansiz of the World Resources Institute (WRI), a think tank. "The cost of living in Istanbul, for example, might seem to have decreased, but since household expenses have increased, this has no positive reflection on the daily life of Istanbulites," said Cansiz, director at WRI's Turkey Sustainable Cities programme.