Revamping public transport requires more than a subsidy for electric buses

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₹57,600 crore over 10 years. It will provide ₹20,000 crore of this, and the rest will come, presumably, from state governments and private investors. There are three things to note about the decision.

One, the focus is on buses rather than cars, as in the first and second installments of the government’s Faster Adoption of Manufacture of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme. Two, it allows for the introduction of battery swapping, which would prevent long waiting times at charging stations. Three, the contribution of electric vehicles to combating climate change depends to a great extent on the source of the electricity used to charge vehicles.

Countless studies have shown that public transport is the most energy-efficient form of mobility. This makes intuitive sense as well. If millions of cars crisscross the city, carrying just one or two passengers each, they will use up several times the energy needed to ferry the same number of people by bus or train.

The challenge here is three-fold. The first is optimising the routes of buses and Metro trains and the interconnections between them, and making sure journeys begin and end at predictable times. Buses, like Metro trains, could and should run on an approved schedule that’s available online and at bus stops.

This is vital to encouraging people to leave their cars at home and use public transport. The second challenge is last-mile connectivity. It is not enough for a commute to end in a broad locality.