The Working Group on Urban Transport for the 12th Five Year Plan has made recommendations on investments and plans on 9 broad themes in urban transport which were identified in line with the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) developed by the Government of India.

This illustrated guide provides a rich collection of images of sustainable urban transport initiatives from around the world. It considers the transport problems evident in many cities in Asia, including high levels of energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, congestion, road casualties, urban sprawl, and social exclusion. The projections are that these worsening trends are set to continue.

Parisar analyzed the budgetary allocation on transportation sector in Pune’s 2011-12 budget. It emerges that more than 60% of the transport sector budget is allocated to projects which are motor vehicle friendly like building of new roads, flyovers, parking structures and re-tarring of roads. On the other hand, non-motorized friendly and public-transport friendly projects get only 9% and 18% respectively of the budget allocation in spite of including doubtful projects such as subways, skywalks, BRT (as currently implemented) and Metro (as currently planned).

Increased focus has been placed on the issues of energy access and energy poverty over the last number of years, most notably indicated by the United Nations (UN) declaring 2012 as the “International Year of Sustainable Energy for All”. Although attention in these topics has increased, incorrect assumptions and misunderstandings still arise in both the literature and dialogues. Access to energy does not only include electricity, does not only include cook stoves, but must include access to all types of energy that form the overall energy system.

This new study released by the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) benchmarks the pedestrian infrastructure of six Indian cities. In addition to the availability of pedestrian footpaths, it also includes other parameters such as accessibility to crossings and amenities and road safety issues, such as motorists’ behaviour towards pedestrians.

This report outlines the core argument of Share the Road, a campaign that works to help re-balance the current state of road investments across all modes.

One of the major difficulties in doing cost-benefit analysis of a development project is to estimate the total economic value of project benefits, which are usually
multi-dimensional and include goods and services that are not traded in the market. Challenges also arise in
aggregating the values of different benefits, which may not be mutually exclusive.

This report by Parisar presents results of a survey of pedestrians using Foot Over-Bridges (FOBs) and Foot Under-Bridges (FUBs), as well as the findings of a usability analysis of these facilities in Pune.