The Global Urbanist

At the first annual Urban Transport Congress India held in Mumbai late last month, scholars and engineers from around the world converged to discuss challenges facing Indian transportation.

In a city like Mumbai, each road, walkway and bus is filled to capacity. Just drive north on the Worli Sea Link at rush hour and you'll understand the complex problem facing city planners. How do we effectively move Mumbai's masses?

According to Professor Shivanand Swami, chief planner of Ahmedabad's Janmarg Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System, an increased focus on bus transport is the first step to better transit. Professor Swami led a discussion on designated bus lanes as the final conversation in the two-day conference. "It's about moving people, not vehicles," Swami said; "a bus system will always be te backbone of any transportation system."

Designated lanes could decrease travel time by freeing buses of other road traffic, and increasing the frequency and reliability of Mumbai's BEST system. The Bombay and Electric Supply Transport bus system, a fleet of 3,900 red buses, currently serves over five million Mumbaikars a day.

The Janmarg BRT system could serve as a model for a future Mumbai system. "It is the lifeline of Ahmedabad," Swami said of a system that now shuttles around 30,000 people per day. The system has been highly praised for its efficiency, and was awarded the Sustainable Transport Award in 2010 by the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy.

But it remains to be seen whether designated bus lanes would suit the Mumbai context. It is impossible, Swami admits, to update the system without upsetting the shared road space. It requires a reevaluation of priorities. Bus lanes would lessen already cramped roads for regular traffic. It requires not only a change in city planning, but a change in the attitude and culture of driving Mumbaikars. Traffic may get worse before it gets better - a difficult prospect for those already stuck amid beeping horns and swerving rickshaws.

But public transport based around Monorail systems or increased train availability, which don't affect regular road traffic, require a lot of initial capital from an already strained city budget. Bus systems might be an affordable and efficient solution to Mumbai's transportation woes. But what's needed, according to Swami, is the political will to advocate change. And in the case of Mumbai, it needs the support of the general public to make the BEST system the best it can be.

This article originally appeared in slightly amended form in Beyond Profit, reprinted with permission.