ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the fact that, in most Indian cities, the poor state of urban mobility is due more to public policy failures and the fact that at the city level no one appears to be in charge of urban transport. Public transport modes in these megacities have had different histories. In the cases of Bombay and Calcutta, where growth has been mainly linear, the suburban railways carry a significant volume of goods and people. Regulation of traffic and penalties for road violations are invariably handled by the police, which, in Indian cities, do not come under city government control. The National Urban Transport Policy, adopted by the government of India in 2006, recommends the setting up of a unified metropolitan transport authority in each million-plus city to facilitate better coordination in the planning and implementation of urban transport systems.
