Bhubaneswar: A brainstorming session on ‘Sustainable urban mobility options for Bhubaneswar and first Mobility Plan Coordination Committee meeting on Low Carbon Mobility Plan’ (LCMP), organised by BDA, Housing and Urban Development department and Detsche Gesellschaft for Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) of the German Government, was held here Tuesday.
The discussion focused on implementing the Integrated Sustainable Urban Transport Systems for Smart Cities (SMART-SUT) project.
Deliberating on the topic, international mobility expert Dario Hidalgo from Bogota, Columbia said better public transport options make cities healthier and happier. The expert also called for more use of walking, cycling and people-friendly urban designing “so that the citizens would be less dependent on cars, so that the environmental sustainability would be an easier thing to manage in the long run.”
BDA vice chairman Krishan Kumar in his welcome address mentioned that low carbon mobility plan for Bhubaneswar shall look at multiple modes of transport to provide better, cleaner mobility options and not making the state capital a car-dependant city. He added that the technology-empowered public transport Mo Bus service in the city would provide comfortable, safer and smoother public transport alternatives like car rental service providers making the public service people-friendly and affordable in near future. By using the mobile app, commuters can have all the information on the bus service very soon. Integration of public bicycle sharing system with the bus service would also serve towards the LCMP target.
Sarah Habersack, project manager SMART-SUT, GIZ, in her inaugural address invited all stakeholders in the city to be proactive in creating an asset in form of urban transport that would help create a more liveable city.
The objective of the project is to improve the planning and implementation of sustainable urban transport in Bhubaneswar, Kochi and Coimbatore.
The first agreed upon activity in Bhubaneswar, the development of a LCMP for the city, has already been initiated by the SMART-SUT team comprising of World Resource Institute (WRI) India and Wuppertal Institute, together with the support from BDA and Bhubaneswar Urban Knowledge Centre (BUKC).