Projects to reduce road crashes and intelligent bus stops get Volvo sustainability awards

Bangalore, November 12, 2013: Winners of the third edition of the Volvo Sustainable Mobility Award, instituted in 2011, were announced at the Volvo Nobel Memorial Seminar 2013 in Bangalore last week with ArriveSAFE and Mumbai Environmental Social Network sharing the top honours. ECOCABS was declared runner-up for an initiative that combined sustainable mobility and social empowerment. Two initiatives that received special recognition were Delhi’s Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) and Bangalore-based EMBARQ India.

The Volvo awards aim to recognise outstanding efforts in sustainable mobility. The entries for the third edition came from citizen groups, consultancies, institutions and student groups. The winning entries were ‘To Reduce the Number of Road Crashes Due to Drunken Driving’ by ArriveSAFE and Making Bus Stops in Mumbai Intelligent and Informative for Passengers by the Mumbai Environmental Social Network.

ArriveSAFE’s entry is aimed at reducing road crashes caused by drunken driving in Punjab and Haryana. The organisation will partner with government bodies to develop a roadmap for effective enforcement to check drunken driving, develop content for awareness and guidelines for enforcement agencies on how to conduct awareness campaigns for the public.

Mumbai Environmental Social Network’s (MESN) Making Bus Stops in Mumbai Intelligent and Informative for Passenger aims at improving the bus system and increase its usage. MESN installed route maps for the Kalanagar, Bandra (east) junction in Mumbai that passengers found useful. MESN now plans to install similar bus route maps at railway stations to provide information about destinations served by buses from a particular railway station. It also plans to see if it is possible to provide real-time arrival information either at bus stops or in users’ mobile phone.

ECOCABS, the runner-up awardee’s initiative, aims at promoting cycle rickshaws as an affordable means of sustainable urban transport especially for shorter distances. It aims to beef up existing unorganized network and has implemented a couple of successful projects. The team is now working on a project that will be a feeder system for the Gurgaon Rapid Metro, under which cycle rickshaws will be facilitated with a ‘dial-a-rickshaw’ facility at each of the six metro stations proposed at Gurgaon followed by its linkage with Resident Welfare Association to provide door-to-door service. Also on the cards is low-cost GPS devices for rickshaws that costs less than Rs 1,000 in order to provide real time tracking of cycle rickshaw in the future.

Real-time Bus Arrival Information System & Delhi Transit Bus Info Application by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) were given special recognition for their aim to provide users with relevant information through web and mobile based technologies on bus operations and schedules. The application has been launched on web as well as on Android platform. Going further the application will be extended to other platforms like iOS, Blackberry, Symbian.

DIMTS plans to give the commuters an option to add a future desired trip and a mobile application that will alert them whenever a bus is approaching their bus stop. Also planned is a feature to provide the current occupancy levels of a bus.

Towards a Walkable and Sustainable Bengaluru a Safe Access Project for Indiranagar Metro Station by EMBARQ India also received special recognition. The Indiranagar metro station area is a predominantly residential one with a high concentration of commercial activities along the main roads. This project aims to develop safe access, by cycle and walking to metro stations from a distance of 500 metres and ensure safe and easy integration of the metro with other public transport and intermediate public transport modes. EMBARQ hopes to provide technical support to the Directorate of Urban Land Transport to complete SAPs (Safe Access Projects) which includes review of consultants and quality control during project implementation.

Akash Passey, SVP – Business Region International, Volvo Bus Corporation and chairman, Volvo Buses in India, said, “It’s truly heartening to see the number of individuals and groups that are making an effort to make our cities a better place to live in. These are people often working in the background, making special efforts and we are glad to be able to recognize them through the Volvo Sustainable Mobility Award.”

Manish Sahi, MD, Volvo Buses in India, said, “This year we received entries like BRTS, pedestrian safety, cycling, urban planning from stakeholders working in Tier 2 cities which is heartening.”