Can Standardisation only Bring the Sustainability in Mobility Sector?

Cities in India are experiencing fast growth in registered motorized vehicles. Booming economy, aspirations to own a vehicle, inadequate public transport, government's encouraging policies etc. are few reasons for the rapid growth in motorization. The absolute number of vehicles on road has increased from 19 million in 1990 to 89.61 million in 2005–06 and is expected to reach 295 million by 2030, overtaking that of the United States [2,11]. Concern for local air pollution has been duly responded by various stakeholders. Technological and policy response have been dominated by standard specification and implementation through certification. In this paper I try to present the case of Kolkata city where Euro I, II, III standards have been implemented since 1980 to reduce emissions of local pollutants. Using empirical evidence of fuel consumption and km travelled by the public sector vehicles I have analyzed how far the goal could be achieved. Findings show that emissions from mobility sector cannot be reduced through change of vehicle standard alone. Results also show that mere technical standard specification cannot bring in fuel economy as fuel consumption varies with speed and congestion. Mobility system as a whole need to be planned which include vehicle standard, city planning, road space allocation, congestion management, traffic flow routing all taken together. Partial approach may not deliver the desired outcome. Often time's integration is theoretically understood but practically left to disjoint decision making and policy planning.