By the time you are done reading this sentence, over 20 cars (and 70 two-wheelers) would have been registered in India. Together these 20 cars on an average will emit 3.15 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide for every kilometre they are driven (157.5 g CO2 per km was the corporate average for cars in 2021-22) for the rest of their operational life.Every quarter minute, India needs a parking space equivalent to the size of a standard soccer field to accommodate new registrations.These points are not intended to criticise car owners, neither are they meant as pleas to stop car sales in the country. They are meant to highlight the imbalance in travel choices.Personal vehicles dominate urban mobility. India registered 25.5 million vehicles in financial year 2024-25. More than 88 per cent of these vehicles were personal vehicles, two-wheelers and cars. A review of the available information on motorised modal share from different sources, including city mobility plans and independent research, indicates that on an average the share of personal vehicle usage ranges from 35-45 per cent, that of intermediate public transport (IPT) is about 10 per cent and public transport modal share a mere 25 per cent in Indian cities. To top it off, cities are witnessing increase in travel demand and distances. The average per capita trip rate has increased by 17.5 per cent in cities and the average trip length has gone up by 28.6 per cent in the last 10 years, studies show.Given the magnitude of car and two-wheeler registrations and the number of trips happening using private transport, the average passenger in the country is emitting more. That’s because a private vehicle carries 1-2 persons at a time in most cases, whereas a shared mode of transport such as buses, metros and IPT modes are capable of carrying a much greater number of passengers in a vehicle. If those same 20 individuals — who registered their cars while you read that first sentence — chose not to drive and instead boarded a CNG bus, their combined emissions would drop to just 1.06 kg of CO2 per km. That’s about 53.1 grammes per person per km, less than a third of what they’d emit driving.And yet public transport remains an unpopular choice among commuters, not due to the lack of awareness among commuters about environmental benefits of public transport, rather due to the poor service levels.Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has studied 19 major state transport undertakings (STU) which run public buses, including 12 state corporations and seven municipal undertakings to understand the extent of the problem. These include the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar. During 2014-2019, these 19 STUs reported a mere 4.6 per cent increase in bus fleet. Bus fleet not keeping up with population and travel demand results in longer waiting times, making buses inconvenient. Consequently, the ridership declined by 5.8 per cent during the same period. This decline in ridership led to heavy losses across all STUs. Between FY 2014-15 to FY 2018-19, on an average, the losses have tripled across 19 STUs.The combined loss of the 56 State Road Transport Undertakings is Rs 17,932 crore. Out of this, the state corporations have the biggest share of 57.39 per cent, followed by state-owned companies (23.73 per cent), municipal undertakings (10.33 per cent) and governmental departmental undertakings (6.56 per cent).Metro rail systems in India face two major challenges: Ridership lower than the projected estimatesLack of integration and poor last mile connectivity. Also, most systems are not networks but corridors that increases journey time and interchanges and costsFinancial sustainability Sixteen cities in India have an operational metro rail system, with a collective network length of 862 kilometres (reported network lengths until 2024). A study by IIT Delhi in 2023 concluded that the metro rail systems in Indian cities have only been able to achieve about 25-35 per cent of the projected ridership.Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has achieved the highest ridership compared to others, and it is less than half of the projected i.e. 47 per cent. This is largely because Delhi has been created as an extensive network as opposed to single to double corridors in most other cities, that does not address an important aspect of planning a public transport system which is to plan for wider connectivity, and travel flexibility.Out of the 16 cities with a metro rail system, 15 are corridor based. Delhi is the only city that has an operational network of 10 lines spread over 395 kilometres across the city.Further, metro rail systems in India have failed to leverage non-fare box revenue. High dependency on farebox revenue leads to significant losses in the case of service disruptions, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore having a higher share of non-operational sources of revenue is important, and metro systems have great potential to make use of these sources due to their robust ecosystem approach from the get go.Global best practices such as the Hong Kong MTR and Singapore’s SMRT have reported non-farebox contributions as high as 58 per cent and 28 per cent respectively, compared to Bengaluru, Mumbai and Chennai seeing 6 per cent, 11 per cent and 16 per cent (as reported in 2021).Poor financials lead to limited action towards improvement, which leads to loss in confidence among commuters, which leads to a failing public transport system, and dependence on more convenient modes of transport such as private transport.To understand the phenomenon further, CSE has studied travel diaries of commuters across Delhi using different combinations of transport modes to complete their primary trips. Respondents were asked to provide a step-by-step account of their daily journeys, listing each mode of transport used. This included all segments of the trip, such as walking to the bus stop, taking the bus, taking an intermediate paratransit mode, and walking again to reach their destination. The sample was spread evenly across all income groups in Delhi..Download the report.The idea was to quantify the disparities between trips made solely on private transport, and trips made using public transport, or any other form of shared transport, and in the process test the hypothesis of whether public transport is truly cheaper than private transport.Among the sample, nearly half (49 per cent) of people use private transport, with most parking close to home. Among private vehicle users, 60 per cent of car users and 75 per cent of two-wheeler users commute directly to their destinations, while a smaller portion combine driving with metro use. The metro is used as a second mode by 20 per cent of commuters, accessed via walking (7 per cent), private vehicles (7 per cent), or auto-rickshaws. Another 5 per cent use it as a third mode, often reached by walking, private vehicle or connecting metro lines. Cab users typically complete their entire journey by cab, with rare exceptions due to service limitations. Buses are used by 9 per cent of commuters, mainly as a second or third mode, accessed by walking or cycling.According to the analysis based on the travel data, when only fuel and fare costs are included for journey costs, public transport is cheaper — the median value of public transport fare is Rs 2.97 per km, significantly lower than the median of fuel cost for private transport journey is Rs 6.36. This makes sense given that one of the basic principles of designing a public transport system is affordable fares for sections of the society, aiming to make transportation accessible to the majority. However, the factors which increase the journey cost of public transport systems are interchange mode fare costs for first and last mile, interchange time cost, as well as the increased journey time cost due to congestion (for buses). For context, in Delhi, more than 50 per cent of the bus stops have a waiting time of 10 minutes. This is both a consequence of congestion and poor scheduling, which leads to bus bunching and lost revenue for the operator.Congestion can cause abysmal delays for public transport during peak hours, especially for buses. During weekdays, Delhi sees an average speed reduction of 41 per cent in morning peak hours and 56 per cent during evening peaks. Over weekends, morning traffic is slowed down by 27 per cent and evening traffic by 42 per cent (analysis for September 2024). Speed reduction was calculated with respect to free-flow speed, or the speed during the early hours of morning when the traffic is negligible.So, when journey cost includes the components of time during interchanges and travel in public transport, along with additional cost fare for first and last mile, the scales tip to favor private modes financially. Time cost has been calculated based on income, daily working hours and working days in a year.In the units of share of annual journey cost in annual income, the median value for public transport trips for the sample was 18 per cent, with the interquartile range (IQR, refers to the middle spread of the data sample) between 12 and 32 per cent. For private transport, the median value is 12 per cent, while the IQR is 6 to 18 per cent.Interestingly, metro trips are more expensive than buses, and the highest among all modes, when considering the total journey cost due to the increased costs of first and last mile due to lesser coverage of metro stations compared to bus stations. Additionally, the time taken for boarding and alighting metro trains is also substantial due to factors such as navigating through often crowded platforms, queues for security posts, among others.This financial feasibility is important to study because it directly influences commuters’ choices and can either encourage or discourage the use of public transport. If public transport is perceived as more costly — not just in fare but also in time and inconvenience — people are more likely to opt for private vehicles, which worsens congestion and pollution. And the cycle goes on.But here’s how to break it. Private transport is not going away. There is a need for ambitious technology pathways that support cleaner fuels and regulate strict fuel economy standards for vehicles to cut emissions at the source.Service-level benchmarks for public transport need to be revised and studied in mobility plans. Interventions need to be backed by iterative research, commuter and vehicle data, and scientific knowledge. Further, walking and cycling infrastructure, and formal feeder systems must be expanded to strengthen last-mile connectivity. At the same time, private transport demand must be managed by discouraging excessive use through parking reforms, congestion pricing, low emission zones, and fair taxation. Urban planning should focus on compact development that keeps homes, jobs, and services close — especially near transit hubs. Budget priorities must shift from car-centric infrastructure to public and zero-emissions transport, backed by innovative financing tools like land value capture and climate funds.This article is part of our series on how India moves, which looks at the relationship between air quality and human mobility in cities and towns..Read stories on pollution in Hindi