Cartoons as a Mass Communication Strategy for Sustainable Transport

Sudhir Gota

The first thing most of us often notice in the newspaper is the editorial cartoon – an art of the moment drawn to illustrate message in a comic way. The illustrations often reside in our memory for a long time and thus newspapers use cartoons as a means to provide the knockout punch – to create an immediate impact among the audience.

This benefit of quick impact provides huge potential for educating masses on sustainable transport issues. To initiate the paradigm shift, a huge effort needs to be made in changing the mindset of transport consumers and policy makers. Cartoons in newspapers can provide the not only an easiest way of reaching vast segment of audience– educated to non-educated, children to elders, urban and rural people etc., but also creating lasting impact in few seconds.

When editorial cartoons are supported by think pieces written by editors, policy makers and experts, it creates the momentum at the grass route level thereby increasing the support for the paradigm shift in transport. One needs all the support when trying to create solutions by attacking the demand and breaking the trend of using infrastructure as a magic bullet.

Take the case of Ahmedabad BRTS, where media played a constructive role in highlighting various issues related to BRTS, educating the people and providing constructive criticisms which enabled it to become a best practice BRT in Asia. Without media support, things become very difficult for policy makers and political support for radical actions often evaporates.

In order to capture as to how newspaper cartoons can create lasting impact, transport cartoons from times of India newspaper (TOI) from India where collated from the period January-2008 till now. This newspaper is extremely popular in India and supposed to have the largest circulation among all English-language newspapers in the world. According to some estimates it has a print readership of 13.3 million and its online version reaching a record 159 million page views in May 2009. Scanning through 840 newspaper editions though is a time consuming process, extracted collection is very impressive with many transport related stories being told with simple images.

Studying the cartoons from last early 2008, fuel prices and congestion has been the favorite topic of the artists. In 2008, newspapers used cartoons many a times to create awareness on fuel consumption and rising fuel prices. Climate change and COP discussion was another favorite topic during 2009. Many cartoons were localized to suit domestic audience to create greater impact and many also relied on quotes to add the punch. The stories were conveyed from the perspective of common man.
Though, few cartoons took potshots against Delhi BRT, many were highlighting the poor pedestrian infrastructure. Surprisingly, considering very high accident fatalities, not many cartoons highlighted the road safety aspects.

Please find some of the collection below. Please source all the cartoons to Times of India and do send them positive feedback and request for more transport related cartoons @http://epaper.timesofindia.com/index.asp. Many a times such efforts can create lasting impression and thus resulting in better outreach.

See the cartoons @ http://cleanairinitiative.org/portal/system/files/Times_of_India.pptx

FREIGHT TRANSPORT – THE MISSING LINK

Sudhir Gota

Will more trucks on more roads yield higher GDP?

Under the changing climate many cities are initiating several city based passenger transport strategies to combat growing externalities from transport. When we hear interviews, read papers – we often see policy makers charting down the magic bullets to solve the negative spillovers from transport and most often they overlook one vital clog in the wheel – freight transport.

In Asian countries, trucks are the most visible freight carriers with mini vans playing significant roles within cities. The truck-freight growth often shadows GDP growth rates thus making policy makers assume that more trucks on road would invariably mean spiraling increase in GDP. More often this is misapprehension.

Though trucks offer highest flexibility, increase in trucks means high rebound congestion with each additional truck slowing down others and thus ensuring that that we are moving our freight while accelerating the consumption of valuable resources. In order to keep the movement easy on the pocket we often subsidize diesel with devastating consequences.

The other misapprehension floating in the market which many agencies quote is

“Equipment utilization rates for the trucking fleet, which average 60,000 km to 100.000 km per truck-year, are less than a quarter o f those in developed economies”

This is used as a basis for expanding roads without realizing the fact that average trucks in developed countries cover the same distances.

In order to understand the importance of trucks on environment and transport, let’s consider the case of China;

“Diesel vehicles (majority freight) constitute only 12% of total fleet in 2005. Since they are commercially operated, they travel length and breadth of the country accumulating mileages. This increases the share of diesel in total vehicle kilometer travel to nearly 29%. Since the trucks operate at low economy and efficiency, the share of diesel vehicle in total CO2 jumps to 72% and in PM emissions to 91%!!”

Or Thailand

“The share of total energy consumption is 51% for the freight transport mode, 32% for the nonurban passenger transport mode and 17% for the urban transport mode”

Or India

“Unfortunately the rail road mode share competition does not replicate zeno’s paradox. In 1950’s the rail-road ton-km share was 90%-10%. In 2000 it is 27%-73%. Volume in both the sectors show positive growth but rail represents slow growth, road represents high. With government doubling the investments on super highways roads would continue to attract more freight in future.

It’s clear that the freight contribution in transport is huge and thus provides the most opportunities. There are many reasons for the inefficiency in the Asian logistics sector, prime being fragmented market.

Majority of trucking industry is divided with multiple operators. Consider China, where majority oftrucking companies have on average around one truck and fewer than two employees. A decade earlier, India had 77% of fleet under operators owning 5 trucks or less and now 86% of total fleet is still under unorganized operators.

With no coordination this leads to high deadheading. In fact in many Asian countries deadheading amounts to nearly 30-40% of total truck VKT. There are ripple effects of such deadheading. In order to maximize the loaded movements, the operators have to resort to overloading which not only aggravates the injury to the road pavement but also consumes high energy. More often due to overloading, in order to silence the authorities, the truck drivers pay a huge bribe.

Having small operators’ to dominate the field mean that the vehicles being used to transport freight are not only old but also are size in-efficient. In fact the ratios in China and India are approximately 1:1 of truck trailers to truck tractors. This ratio is often 2-3 : 1 in developed countries. The impact of such inefficient vehicle fleet does not only pinch the pockets of operator but also the tax payers as higher axle loading of 2-3 axle trucks damages the road thus requiring frequent strengthening.

The pavement damages by overloaded trucks not only pinches the taxpayers’ pockets but also chokes the lungs and damages the environment as more often it disturbs the balance in speeds – first effect being reduction in average speeds to less than 20 kmph to tackle poor roads, the authorities starts slowly rebuilding the roads thus draining the resources and environment further and as soon as the roads are finished it increases the speeds beyond normal or beyond the limit where one can save energy thus increasing the fuel consumption.

It’s no surprise that authorities are changing the codes fast. Over the past decades many countries have increased the legal axle limits to accommodate such higher axle loads. India’s legal single axle load limit is now 10.2 tons, which used to be 8.16 tons decade earlier. Thailand’s maximum axle load limit is 8.2 tonnes while the truck-load limit is 25 tonnes, which was increased from 21 tonnes in 2006.

The impact of thicker pavement and overloading on environment is so complex that it is a detailed study topic inUC Berkeley Center for Future Urban Transport where many people are researching on it.

In the urban environment, the impact needs to be understood from the perspectives of traffic management and air pollution. Cities build bypasses after bypasses to push the trucks out of city limits which boomerangs with disastrous consequences because of sprawl and city freight distribution. In a city like Tianjin (China), trucks contribute 44% of PM and 54% of NOx emissions.

Consider the case of Delhi, experts here used the traffic management option commonly adopted in Asia i.e. to ban truck movement in daytime. Though this initially reduced the PM levels during the daytime, however, due to the rapid growth in truck numbers during the night time, the contribution of trucks to day-time PM levels is increasing as night time emissions linger into the daytime.

The problem is further compounded when there are multiple agencies having stakes in freight movement. One of the studies from Philippines listed down 41 agencies/organizations/institutions which needs to be brought together to discuss solutions.

Clearly, the magnitude of issues dictate urgent actions.

Wait for the next blog for solutions...

Transport Infrastructure Efficiency

Which kind of transport investments are the most efficient?

Sudhir Gota

This question bothers many policy makers. Answering this question is rather difficult as different projects require different scale of investments which carry variable load and satisfies diverse set of consumers. Also it would be wrong to assume that we can always build different alternatives physically having same bunch of people using it.

Knowing the above limitations, we can still assess efficiency of infrastructure requiring different set of investments – from High Cost such as Metro, to median ranged projects such as BRTS, Roads to low cost projects such as bikelanes and footpaths.

Let’s consider the following projects – Metro, BRTS, Expressway of 4 lane, two lane urban in high income zone, two lane urban in Low income zone, Bikeways and Footpaths and thus using the law of averages to evaluate the construction cost efficiency.

In order to compare efficiency – one needs average capacity and average cost. Let’s make an assumption as detailed in below table.

	Capacity (average person/hour)	Cost (million USD)
1 km of Footpath of 2m wide	2400	0.1
1 km of Bikeways of 3m wide	3000	0.15
1km of two lane urban (Low income)	4500	1
1km of two lane urban (high income)	2600	1
1 km of Expressway of 4 lane	8500	3.5
1 km of BRTS	16000	2
1 km of Metro	60000	35

1. The Metro represented here is a replica of Bangalore Metro being constructed now. Its estimated to cost 35 million USD/Km.

2. BRTS – The BRTS taken above satisfies 8000 pphpd and costs 2 million USD/Km. this represents an average BRTS which is being constructed in many Asian cities.

3. Roads are tricky as they can carry a highly variable set of volume. So let’s assume LOS “B” and and 7% as peak hour volume. Lets also assume that a freight vehicle is equivalent to a vehicle carrying 15 passengers. ( this thumb rule matches with Value of time concept)

a. consider 35000 PCU/Day for Expressway – 4 lane

b. consider 15000 PCU/day for 2 lane urban road

c. Occupancy of 1,2,1.5 and 25 for two, three wheeler, car and Bus

d. Assume 50% mode share of freight in expressway and 9% in urban roads ( data Indian Roads)

e. Assume 55% two wheelers in low income and 55% Cars in high income areas

f. The other mode share epitomizes typical Asian roads ( 6% of vehicles as Bus)

4. Use Passenger Car Units to convert PCU’s into vehicles and then using occupancies break down the vehicles into passengers

5. Consider Bikelanes to carry 3000 cyclists/hour suggesting a dense network as seen in Delhi BRTS costing 0.15 million USD/km

6. Consider footpaths to carry 2400 persons/hour at a speed of 1.2 m/sec indicating LOS B. It may cost approx ) 1million USD/km.

Using the same money as required for constructing 1 km metro, one can on an average construct

1. 18 km of BRTS
2. 10 km of four lane Expressway
3. 35 km of two lane urban road
4. 235 km of Bikeways
5. 350 km of footpaths

Thus normalizing different projects into same investment of say 1 km of metro and thus using the capacities and length, we can calculate efficiencies.

The below graph gives the efficiencies

The low cost projects such as bikeways and footpaths in fact provide best efficiency!!

They are 12 to 14 times more efficient than a system like metro. The above calculations can be made more useful by including operation costs and emissions. But the footpaths and bikelanes would be the winners but they often receive least attention and funding.

HIDDEN EMISSIONS FROM TRANSPORT

Sudhir Gota

Latest news from Mumbai got many people excited about Monorails and its impact on emissions. The news report claimed that on an average the mono rail would save 3500 tons/year/km. This kick started a debate on emissions savings from metro rail projects and its hidden component – construction emissions. The debate pitchforked the main issue of infrastructure construction as a significant component of transport emissions. Experts believe that we do a great disservice to entire emissions argument from transport by not considering such hidden aspects and we need to consider whole emissions argument from transport with a pinch of salt. Researchers like Mikhail Chester have proved that Construction is significant component of total life cycle and should not be neglected.

Gigantic infrastructure projects take ages to plan, get approved, and finally to get implemented in a developing country. Bangalore metro substantiates the above statement. Mass rapid system in Bangalore have been studied from past late 1980’s and it was only until in early 2000’s that some actual planning was initiated. Main construction for approx 40 km of metro was initiated in 2006 and the people would only get a chance to experience the system in the year 2012. By the time metro starts chugging along the Bangalore streets, things would have changed. This argument is in fact more worrisome for elevated roads and isolated flyovers which take two years as an approximate to complete in a city like Bangalore. While the traffic suffers, emission gets multiplied and finally it opens to jam-packed traffic created by land use manipulations by builders anticipating zero congestion.

Massive projects require huge quantities of material, machinery and workers which create many leakages in emission profile. Research coming out from Japan reinforces this argument that expensive metro can in fact accumulate high intensity of emissions during construction. Researchers from Nagoya university have estimated that a station of the Superconducting MAGLEV generates emissions of magnitude 2,430[t-C/station] during construction only. Many researchers in order to to simply the calculations argue that only the emissions generated during material production be considered as a basis. But then, research also suggests that material movement, use, disposal can accrue 42% of production emissions.

The above argument looks minute in nature if we consider emissions quantified from Cairo Subway which shows that construction emissions are equivalent to 28 years of operation emissions !!

This above arguments raises an important related question –

would High speed rails really save emissions?

There has been tremendous push for such massive projects in developing countries in the name of climate change. Do we really need such expensive solutions to “reduce” emissions? Literature suggests that high speed rails emit approx 73 grams/passengerkm during operations. Indian railways preliminary estimates suggest that a High-Speed Rail consumes 0.933 litres of fuel per 100 km travelled, in comparison to the 4.04 litres consumed by an airplane and 5.69 litres consumed by an economy car. But, what remains hidden in the entire argument is fact about construction emission. Experts have suggested that high-speed rail can produce some 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year during construction.

Back of the envelope calculations suggest that a kilometer of high speed rail would cost anything from 10-20 million $/km in developing countries when neglecting land costs. Even if we blindly assume that emissions are being saved by such corridors, can developing countries really afford it?

We need more debate and need to see more numbers as massive construction can really change the game!!

“HYBRIDS” RULE PHILIPPINES STREETS – PART 1

By, Sudhir Gota

‘Josephine Guittu ‘drives a Hybrid for living in Manila.

In case if you are wondering if he has cracked the “technology” barrier to own a cheap non polluting vehicle then you are mistaken. Instead, few weeks earlier he used to be a part of problem which makes millions sick in Philippines i.e. air pollution. He used to drive what can be described as a modified re- engineered two wheeler with a sidecar, powered by a polluting non-efficient two stroke engine. He used to drive across the local streets in Manila, ferrying 2-6 people at one time, creating a visible “wave of smoke” from the tailpipe across the city. When the distance travelled is as high as 100 km/day, the problem is definitely injurious.

But past few weeks have transformed his life as he proudly displays a new four stroke tricycle which “pollutes” less and he saves valuable imported fuel while providing transport solution to poor-middle class people. He was extremely lucky to be a part of 20 drivers who got help from the government and other stakeholders like “Partnership for Clean Air” in becoming less polluting. They designed a revolving-fund scheme to grave his two stroke out of the system.

But, there are thousands of “Josephine Guittu” still waiting for help while people breath polluted air in Manila.


My colleague ‘Bert Fabian’ considers tricycles to be a tri-dimensional problem: “it’s a political, social and transport issue”. He is correct when he says that it’s beyond “cradle to grave” issue for the policymakers. It’s a “political” and “social” problem which needs equal attention. A typical tricycle driver earns daily 100-150 pesos on an average which forces him to have insufficient food and worse quality of life. Research has shown that driving in polluted environment and having insufficient food results in many health issues including very low blood vitamin C levels. But theyare helpless!

More and more people venture into the tricycle market due to ballooning unemployment, raising congestion and demand for more mobility. With limited number of old tricycles getting out of system and huge number of tricycles getting inside the system, even tricycle operators can see the reduction in the size of the “pie” of commuters. With increasing competition, comes increased fatality. Already 54% of all injuries occurring in Philippines are street-induced. Thus, high number of problems associated with its unique role in providing cheap (approx 10 pesos for 5 km is a bargain considering its accessibility) mobility, the issue needs immediate solutions.


Government and other agencies have been trying to use different strategies based on “convenience” to reduce the environmental impact thus facing limited success. Many strategies have been tested under different areas with different support system namely -

1. Tricycle capping by Coding scheme, Volume reduction program, Phase-out etc.
2. Identifying illogical operators (anti-colorum drive)
3. Tricycle lanes
4. Regularization with common color per zone
5. Integrated terminals
6. Restricted accessibility with speed controls
7. Promotion of four-strokes and alternative fuels etc.
8. Promotion of human powered transport
But, the problem is “magnitude”.

There are over 73,000 Two-Stroke tricycles in Metro manila alone. Research suggests that delaying action is expensive and unhealthy as it generates 22% more emissions and fuel use if tricycles in manila would be replaced in 10 years instead of 5 years. By acting within 5 years and replacing all two strokes we can save over 26 million liters of gasoline and 13000 tons of PM over next 20 years. This is a highly conservative estimate assuming that in no action scenario there would be only normal scrappage with slow replacement.

In fact, new replacement costs are 110 million$ for replacing all two strokes, with 20 million$ average savings/year for 20 years. In simple terms – we have to act fast as it makes a perfect economic-health sense. Designing a revolving fund with aggressive replacements can reduce the chunk of money involved but maximize the environmental benefits.


Dr. Manuel M. Biona who specializes in treating “tricycles” believes that “retrofits” can solve environmental problems of two strokes as many solutions are being designed which would further reduce the costs and maximize the social benefits. When I quiz him for the technological solutions being developed he suggests some phrases which sends my imagination for a toss - Gasoline Direct Injection Retrofitting, Four Stroke Engine Repowering, LPG Direct Injection Retrofitting and LPG Four Stroke Engine Repowering. Many solutions being developed needs governmental support in piloting in order to select the best performer in the group.

Also, considering the filipino ingenuity in keeping “alive” their tricycles we have to ensure that technology and non-technology solutions are cemented by political will to transform cities. We have to think of “sticks” with “carrots” like micro-financing schemes. When I describe the term stick – I mean regulation which is often lacking. Many drivers themselves know that by regulating we can increase the efficiency and income per driver but we often fail to react on time or take decision. The key to the solution is to design “micro finance scheme” with low interest rates for low income owners and drivers who can use the monthly money to pay back the funds. History has shown limited success if we don’t rely on low initial cost and low interest rates. Designing innovative “insurance” and “marketing” schemes is another option for the policy makers. This coupled with aggressive management strategies for limiting the numbers of tricycles and increasing the human transport facilities we can transform cities in Philippines.

Carrots with Stick can make “immortal” two stroke tricycles “mortal”. We just need the will to transform our cities. Thousands of “Josephine Guittu” are waiting for our help while millions are breathing polluted air, there is no time to lose.

Solution for Air Pollution – Kolkata Experience

Sudhir Gota

Well I am keeping my fingers crossed to see the situation in Kolkata on Monday – August 3/2009. In case you are wondering “what” and “why” Monday – 3rd August is important for all of us – To just backtrack - Monday 3^rd august would be the first working day after the vehicles which are older than 15 years are removed from the active service to reduce the pollution in Kolkata. This means a significant chunk of the public transport and intermediate public transport fleet from the roads. Some estimates suggest that approximately 54% of vehicles are “old” and nearly 65% of vehicle population diesel powered. The problem is so injurious that pollutants like PM 10 exceed standards by 1.5 times.

The battleground was judiciary with environmentalists seeking pollution solution in high court. After many deliberations, court in july-2008 gave a ruling to ban commercial vehicles registered before Jan 1, 1993 from Kolkata and its outskirts. The ruling called for implementation of ruling by 31^st December 2008. Government realizing the magnitude of problem asked for extension until July 31 – 2009. There were efforts by some transporters to cancel the ruling by approaching higher judicial court (Supreme Court) but the strategy didn’t work and thus the ban had to be forcefully implemented by government.

There was lot of debate among stakeholders as to how severe is the problem. Interesting to note here is the debate among government and transporters as to how many buses would be taken off the roads?

Transporters are arguing that 7,000 out of 12,000 buses would be taken off the roads where as government is suggesting that 2,557 buses out of 21,230. This shows the classic case of not knowing the numbers. If we don’t know the numbers then how do we provide solutions? How do we plan alternate solutions? This takes us back to the question about the preparations for such a ban? What has the government done to provide an alternate solution to the people relying on such facility for transport and earning livelihood?

This question is in everybody’s mind and many kolkatans are bracing up for chaotic next week. I will not be surprised if the city comes to halt on Monday. Adhoc implementation without thinking of alternate solutions pushes people towards private transport. Latest statistics from ministry of Urban Development revel that nearly 58% of people rely on public transport and taxis for their daily travel. How do we accommodate their needs without investing on solutions for them? If every one of us are using green cars do we all really move?

I was surprised to find that Indian government even after launching the urban transport policy still thinks that flyovers are one of the major solutions to air pollution problem. If you don’t believe me than you should read this.