UITP India hosts 4th Bus Seminar online

UITP India successfully conducted the 4th Bus Seminar from 24th – 28th August 2020. The conference was conducted in partnership with ASRTU(Association for State Road Transport Undertaking) with lead sponsor GIZ India, session sponsors Aum Infotech, Siemens India and UBER, silver sponsors Volvo, and media partner as MOTORINDIA.

The seminar got worldwide recognition with participation from 41 countries, more than 130 companies and 398 registrations with 44% registrations from outside India. Due to the precautionary measures for COVID pandemic, the seminar was conducted online, which in turn made the countrywide and worldwide outreach possible while breaking the barriers of distance. The participants included representation from state transport undertakings, private bus operators, financing institutions, ministries involved in Bus landscape of India and other industry players. It formed a platform for key national and international speakers to share their knowledge and experiences on various topics of Covid-19 impact on bus sector and the road to recovery based on innovation, digitalisation, artificial intelligence in bus operations, planning and designing for electric bus system & governance and financing instruments to sustain bus operations.

The bus seminar was inaugurated by Honourable Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport and Highways along with Mr Mohamed Mezghani, Secretary General, UITP. Mr Mezghani welcomed the participants and conveyed the message about understanding importance of buses in shouldering the COVID impact while providing essential services, the economic benefits of buses, and need to move forward to better mobility with innovation, technology, legislative support and safety. In his keynote, Shri Gadkari too emphasised on the need to modernise the public transport fleet and promote the use of green fuel like bio-CNG, ethanol and methanol while focusing on adopting best financial models for the Indian cities.
The inaugural was followed by the plenary session moderated by Ange Anczewska from UITP Australia and New Zealand. The speakers included Kim Shriner, Director from Department of Transport, Victoria, Australia, Shivayogi C Kalsad, Managing Director of KSRTC, Arun Bothra, Managing Director, OSRTC (Odisha State Road Transport Corporation) & CRUT(Capital Region Urban Transport) and Abhishek M Pathak, Managing Director and CEO of MP Enterprises. The session was an interactive talk on the COVID 19 impacts on bus sector and the road to its recovery based on the experience of the State Road Transport Undertaking from the state of Orissa and Karnataka, experience from a private operator and also from international cities. The discussion focused on the impacts on the finances with limited operations and revenue. It also discussed the impact on patronage with the limited capacity, future outlook and the innovative revenue options.

The second day held the Technical Session I on Innovation, Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence in bus operations moderated by Henriette Cornet, from Knowledge and Innovation at UITP. The session included presentations and discussions from people involved in the industry worldwide. Luc Van Wijngaarden, founder- Zight, Netherlands, discussed the need for data-driven performance improvement in bus operations, focussing on the selection of KPIs aligned with the goal and enabling customisation. From MSRTC(Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation), Rahul Toro spoke on the implementation path towards enabling the digital payments in MSRTC, thought process involved and the future initiatives. Joanne Yu from T Money Co Ltd, South Korea, spoke on the Integrated ticketing platform provided by T Money for seamless mobility in South Korea and the vast application and future it can provide. S Srinivas founder of AUM Infotech, India talked in detail on the factors that impact automatic fare collection projects in India delving in the technical aspects of it. Guido Di Pasquale from UITP, Belgium spoke on transitioning to Mobility as a Service (MaaS), its ecosystem, models and its future.

The Technical Session II of the seminar moderated by Eleonora Pazos, Head of Latin America, UITP, focused on the Planning and deployment of electric bus system. Ravi Gadepalli from UITP India provided insights into the E-bus industry story so far in India and learnings which one can take from FAME I and II while looking forward to future investments. C Shikha, MD of BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation), gave the insights to barriers faced for e-bus implementation in India along with COVID-19 induced challenges. She also recommended the enabling measures which may be taken up to accelerate the e-bus deployment process. Juan Carlos Gonzales from MTT (Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications), Chile shared MTT’s experience of implementation of the e-buses fleet and its promotion along with understanding its impact on users and system. Laghu Parashar from GIZ, India shared the details of the training needs assessment required for e-bus for the STUs in India on topics ranging from e-buses fundamentals, planning, strategy, monitoring, to end of life scrapping and recycling. Amit Kekare from Siemens, India, gave the details of the Electric Buses technology of present and future with a focus on both buses and supporting infrastructure including charging station and depots. Lastly, Marcello Gargagalione, from CUTCSA(Uruguayan Company of Collective Transport Anonymous Society), Uruguay, talked on the key elements for decision making in e-bus operation, based on CUTCSA’s experience. He talked on topics ranging from business models, planning, real-time projects and the protocols for fleet, charging and services.

Lastly, on day 4, the Technical Session III was organised moderated by Sue Chan, Head of Asia Pacific, UITP on the Governance and financing instruments to sustain bus operations. C K Goyal, the VP at DIMTS(Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System), Delhi, spoke on data-driven performance monitoring of buses and also on the contract monitoring based on learnings from the capital city of Delhi. Focusing on the GCC(Gross Cost Contract) model, he talked on details of projects including responsibilities, financing, fee payment, penalties and bonuses, use of technology, real-time alerts, bus management system performance analysis and others. Guido Bruggeman, MELA LANKA, talked on the public transport service contracts based on learnings from Europe, and approach that can be used for India. He talked in detail on experiences on service contract authority, tendering, funding, performance evaluation, legalities management and others. Rajiv Aggarwal, Head of Public Policy Uber, talked on the governance and performance monitoring through tech integration for mobility in India, including the bus transit, multimodal transit integration and first and last-mile connectivity. Swati Khanna from KfW India spoke on improving the readiness of government bus operators to attract low-cost financing. She focused on why financing for bus sector is needed, the key challenges, the key aspects of financing and the need to access this development financing. Joachim Bergerhoff, from SMMR (Sustainable Mobility for Mid-Sized Metropolitan Regions) project, talked on the bus financing and need of innovation in it with efficiency, governance, technology and design while also emphasising on Transit-oriented Development.
Hence the four days seminar ended with wonderful insights and speakers with tremendous response from audiences and questions for speakers resulting in great discussions. The seminar formed a platform of knowledge sharing which enabled people from different scope of the industry to come together.

Read 4th UITP India Bus Seminar Report here

Access presentations and recordings at My Library