10 Opportunities For Delhi To Achieve Electric, Urban Mobility: Report

In order to achieve clean, shared and people-centric mobility solutions, Delhi has to follow a 10-point formula and amplify its initiatives in electric and urban mobility, a new report has said. By addressing the 10 opportunities, states and cities can enhance their efforts to achieve ambitious mobility goals, said the report by the "Urban Mobility Lab", a platform that supports Indian cities in identifying, implementing, and scaling pilot projects and solutions that transform how people and goods move.

The opportunities are: an EV coordinating body; single-window clearance; incentives for economic market segments; battery swapping technology; charging and battery swapping infrastructure; reliable and renewable power supply; attractive financing for EVs; ease of EV operations; education, outreach, and capacity building; and open mobility data.

To translate policy action into progress on the ground, the Delhi government, through the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDC) and non-profit Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) started the "Urban Mobility Lab" initiative. "The state government needs greater coordination across government agencies in support of EV-related policymaking, permissions, and enforcement," said the report.

Other needs are clearer, simpler processes for both registering and permitting EVs, commissioning charging and battery swapping infrastructure and pursuing opportunities to incentivize the electrification of economic market segments. "The state government needs a technology-agnostic approach to registering and incentivizing EV products and an optimally sized public charging network to meet the needs of EV operators".

Other things required are reliable and renewable vehicle charging power supply, more attractive financing options for EVs, preferential treatment and easier visibility for registered EVs and greater awareness of EVs and their environmental and economic benefits, along with a greater understanding of transport demand, modal integration and traffic patterns.

"It is time to create an EV Cell within the Delhi government to centralize and coordinate all EV-related activities for passenger and freight transport," the report stressed. "The state government has to work with transport department, power department, DISCOMs and other relevant agencies to create a single-window clearance system for both EV registration and approvals and EV charging and battery swapping infrastructure approvals. The system should enable the submission of all required information at a single location or to a single nodal authority," it elaborated.

Delhi government released its draft EV policy in November 2018. It aims to establish policy mechanisms to enable the rapid adoption of EVs, which will help reduce vehicular emissions and improve local air quality. According to the report, light duty four-wheelers are an important vehicle segment in urban parcel delivery. "As is the case with two- and three-wheelers, the four-wheel segment would benefit from subsidies to get closer to cost parity with ICEs (internal combustion engines). By electrifying two-, three-, and light-duty four-wheelers, a larger portion of the urban freight ecosystem can become electric sooner," said the report.

Transitioning to EVs, the report added, can also produce significant economic savings for the country. EVs registered through 2024 would require 120.8 petajoules less energy than an equal-sized ICE fleet and avoid $865 million in oil and LNG imports.

Through the Urban Mobility Lab, DDC and RMI plan to support the path forward by supporting policy and process development, hosting follow-up convenings, supporting the implementation of mobility solutions, collecting data and reporting on performance, and documenting and sharing lessons learned.

"If we did not have the Urban Mobility Lab, we would not be in a position to bring all these energies together in a very focused manner where the private sector, entrepreneurs, financing companies, and government stakeholders come together to discuss solutions and are now ready to deploy them, said Jasmine Shah, Vice Chairperson, DDC, which is a premier think-tank of the Delhi government.