India : Supporting Sustainable Urban Transport in Aizawl City

Transport / Urban public transport

The Government of India (GOI) requested ADB provide assistance to support the development of a sustainable urban transport plan in Aizawl, the capital city of Mizoram state. The S-CDTA (TA) is not included in the Country Cooperation Operations Business Plan, 2013-2015.

The impact of the TA is to equip Aizawl city with safe and sustainable urban transport infrastructure. The outcome is to improve urban development planning for urban transport in Aizawl city.

Based on the review of the existing studies including CDP, and consultation with the relevant state government officials, the TA will identify the bottlenecks of the implementation issues to find a possible direction of the study recommendations. The TA will start with the assessment of the possible short term mitigation measures through traffic flow controls and with small investments in the infrastructure, such as pedestrian decks/bridges and cycling paths, to maximize the utilization of existing urban roads by vehicles. Demand control measures such as provision of public parking spaces will also be explored.

As medium to long term measures, the TA will conduct the pre-feasibility studies of possible urban transport systems suitable for Aizawl city, such as cable liners, ropeways etc. and assess whether they can be economically and financially viable options. This includes the brief technical assessment of candidate projects, ranging from engineering, economic/financial, institutional arrangements and safeguard aspects to guide the state government to plan the further actions including the financing plans to materialize the projects. Possibility to apply PPP will also be explored. It includes the brief assessment to improve the air pollution based on the experiences typically observed in other cities where the number of vehicles continues to increase even after the introduction of new urban transport system.

The TA will also examine the possibility to introduce an eco-friendly public transport system, such as usage of electric vehicles or CNG-fueled vehicles for city buses and taxies, with universally accessible features and designs.

With these activities, the TA will produce two outputs. One is the identification of traffic management measures and small investment projects to be initiated in the short term (2-3 years) within the affordability of the state government and with the simple implementation arrangements. The other is the preparation of pre-feasibility studies of 2-3 projects to be started in 5-10 years with the indication of financing scheme options.

Both outputs will include the recommendation on the climate resilience measures in the proposed projects to improve the urban environment.

Despite the state government efforts to develop a concrete urban transport plan for Aizawl city with small scale studies by local resources, no

visible progress has been seen so far. This is partly due to technical deficiency and lack of know-how to realize the recommendations, but also due to the unique geographical location. No directly applicable best practice in India can be found for this city on hilly mountainous terrains. ADB support is envisaged by the Mizoram government to bring in the international practices applicable to Aizawl.

Under the TA, the Mizoram government expects ADB to propose urban transport system development projects to address the medium/long term needs. The TA is able to advise the Mizoram government on the possible financing options to implement the relatively large investment projects for Mizoram with indicative milestones which the state government should follow.

The TA is consistent with the strategic objectives of the Country Partnership Strategy, 2013-2017, addressing two of its main thrusts, i.e. infrastructure development and environmental sustainability. The TA will support the robust infrastructure development for more rapid growth, possible attraction of private investments, increases in productivity and competitiveness, and improved access to services in Aizawl city. It will also assess the feasibility to promote the electric vehicles in Aizawl city as an option for the environmental sustainable city development.