[PVS]

Originally Posted by for_cars1

You may say use BMTC, Auto, Metro blah blah but in a city like Bangalore for instance, public transportation is pathetic to say the least and last mile connectivity for Metro is non-existent. Try getting an auto/ola/uber in the evenings from the metro station to your home (if your home is within 4 KMs away) and you will know the pain.

Hi, Just curious, don't you have a 2 wheeler at home that you can take and park at the nearest metro station and then take the metro to work? (Provided your place of work is close to the metro system in Bangalore). I follow a similar practice, take my 15 year old first gen activa, park it at the nearest metro station, and take the metro to work and back everyday. Its convenient..

[sramanat]

Slightly off-topic. The WSJ had an article last week about how Uber & Lyft have worsened traffic.

Link.

To me, the promised positive externalities of ride-hailing/sharing was never convincing. On the supply side, they probably improve vehicle utilization, if existing cabbies become uber drivers. If not it worsens it in the aggregate. Plus, I'd assume the need to travel at a given time is independent of Uber.

[RMN]

At least in India, the public transportation needs to improve for the usage of cars to reduce. I've personally been using Quick Ride to offer rides for the past 1.5 years and the constant complain from the passengers are that the connectivity to InfoPark is EXTREMELY poor with very few buses.

Hopefully the second phase of Kochi Metro will soon address this issue and im eager to start using it for commute!

[for_cars1]

Originally Posted by PVS

.. (Provided your place of work is close to the metro system in Bangalore).

You answered it Its not close on both ends.

Originally Posted by RMN

At least in India, the public transportation needs to improve for the usage of cars to reduce.

I believe Public Transportation is not being improved deliberately in our cities.

Our country is currently the largest two wheeler market by volume in the whole world. All these two wheelers sales will drastically reduce if Public transportation is made convenient and abundant with end to end connectivity.

End of the day its all about business, the car/bike manufacturers want a large buyer base on a continued basis for their vehicles. The vehicle OEM lobby would certainly not want Public transportation to improve for sure.

[rideaholic]

Mobility is a new buzz word in the automotive scene and is being used to capture the huge transformation that the industry is seeing as a whole. In the context of passenger vehicles excluding public transport, this is what I think it represents currently-

1. Changing Modes of Ownership

2. EV Adoption

3. Shared Mobility

4. Autonomous Vehicles

Overall I think we are moving more towards mobility as a service rather than a product. This has multiple implications and could mean less personalisation, common form, visually less appealing, invasion of privacy and so on. I wanted to understand the Team-BHPians view on this so kindly share your thoughts.

[Kosfactor]

More than a decade ago at 2:00 AM, a migrant me relized that my wife is suffering from a wheezing attack, unable to breathe. We happened to have a company taxi car driver's number who took us to the hospital that night.

Fast forward 2020 lockdown my neighbour who relied on uber/ola for all his transportation was left without essential supplies when the neighborhood shops closed down.

Cities that pride itself being modern and blah blah has not been able to fix its public transport system because it is very expensive and they cannot charge the rider because the tariff is set politically not based on what is viable. Therefore connectivity remains poor.

For those who are on the fence about getting a car - Go buy them, there is no replacement when you need one.

Originally Posted by for_cars1

I believe Public Transportation is not being improved deliberately in our cities.

End of the day its all about business, the car/bike manufacturers want a large buyer base on a continued basis for their vehicles. The vehicle OEM lobby would certainly not want Public transportation to improve for sure.

No conspiracy here. Public transportation is a victim of being - Public, often not a sustainable operating model.

OEM lobby cannot even get an extension for BS4, forget anything else. They are a very important industry creating millions of jobs and export revenue however extremely under utilised.

We have very low vehicle ownership levels, if the government policies were to encourage the sales and our economic growth on track- the current manufacturing capacity of automobiles won't be enough sustain the demand.

India for it's size should be a hub for automobile manufacturing globally, we can but only if domestic sales pick up.