Motorisation costs to soar in 3 years: study

Larger workforce expected to settle in cities, people will travel longer distances to work; fuel expenses to rise by 34-36%

Owning a vehicle in India in 2020 could cost up to 28% more than what it used to in 2012, according to a recently published paper, “Indian auto-mobility 2020: A perceptive picture,” which also predicts a 34% to 36% increase in fuel costs in the next three years.

The recently published study, by researchers of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, and Bangalore, and the Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi, used the ‘Delphi technique,’ to which experts from leading institutions in India, industry and government, lent their inputs.

 

Diverse group

The group consisted of 17 members from different parts of India, with a cumulative 230 years of experience in areas such as transportation engineering, urban transportation planning, statistical analysis, safety analysis, air pollution studies and high speed rail.

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The paper showed that big Indian cities such as Mumbai and Bengaluru would have greater passenger kilometre travelled/capita (PKT/c) with a larger workforce expected to settle in cities, and commuters having to travel longer distances to reach their places of work. However, the group said fuel costs would be a hindrance to the PKT/c growth, as the cost of one litre petrol in India is 37% of the average daily income, which is way higher than the 2% in the U.S., Germany and Japan.

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As for cars, the number of registered cars per 1,000 population in India (16) is much lower than that of developed countries like the U.S. (423), Germany (517) and Japan (453). However, land use, along with work force participation and age-structure of the population, is perceived to increase motorisation in 2020.

“[Given] The fact that the Indian government is focussed on promoting a local auto-manufacturing and design industry, there will be a huge impetus to motorisation in the coming years.”

But there are also positive takeaways from the study, said Ashish Verma, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering and Centre for infrastructure Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning, IISc. “The team calibrated a score and compared it with the auto-mobility scores of BRIC countries and others like the U.S, Japan and China. We found that India’s score is as low as Japan, which means there will be lower car usage,” he said.