Student Abstracts

GENDER AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN MOBILITY: A CASE STUDY OF HYDERABAD

Sustainable mobility has gained importance in recent decades owing to the increasing stress on environment preservation. The influence of gender on sustainable mobility is a relatively unexplored area of research. Recent studies have revealed that men and women exhibit different travel patterns and this difference tends to be ignored while designing sustainable transport systems. Studies have also shown that women are more concerned about the degradation of the environment and tend to behave in a more environmentally conscious way. With respect to the travel behavior, studies reveal that women’s travel behavior is more sustainable than men’s. This study aimed to understand the travel patterns of men and women in Hyderabad to understand if women adopt more green modes of transport. The study uses primary research for exploring the travel patterns in the city. A structured questionnaire was administered to a sample of 175 respondents. Descriptive statistics are used to analyse the data to explore likely reasons that explain the differences.

URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IN SELECT METROPOLITAN CITIES

Urban public transport is experiencing transformational changes across the globe and India is no exception with multiple metro projects and Smart City initiatives including smart transportation systems. The present situation in many cities is that public transportation resources are overburdened and under equipped. Most of the bus services are dominated by state owned transportation and are unable to keep pace with the rapid urbanization, especially in metropolitan cities. The metro projects are intended to ease the burden of public buses, however, a mode of transport is required by most of the public transport users, to reach the metro stations. This paper focuses on understanding the user perspective and the non-user perspective of public transport across three selected metropolitan cities.

Student- Abstracts

PUNE’S URBAN STREET DESIGN

The capacity of urban streets must be increased in ways that support the urban context and ensure a high-quality public realm. As cities grow upward, inward, and outward to serve changing populations, it is critical to consider the many players and processes that shape streets. Streets are integrally tied to other urban systems and designing them well offers multiple benefits to cities and their residents. The hypothesis of this thesis is that there is a need to design urban streets as living corridors through which one perceives and understands the city. Using Pune as a case study, this thesis analyses spatial and social forces that shape street experience and culture at the scale of the city, the locality, and the street itself. By performing an observational study and an analysis of the street patterns in fifteen localities within the city, along with a detailed spatial analysis and interpretation of different types of streets this paper new throws light on the social life of different types of streets and suggest ways to formulate design guidelines for them.

INCLUSIVITY OF PERI-URBAN AREAS: A CASE STUDY OF DHAYARI VILLAGE

Peri-urban areas are characterized by haphazard development, changing land use pattern, mix of rural and urban characters, overlapping governance structure or no governance structure at all. Peri urban areas, which might include forested hills, valuable protected areas or agricultural lands, can provide living space for urban residents but it creates pressure on land and other natural resources. This study focuses on pre and post -conditions of Dhayari village before it was merged into the PMC limits in 2017. A primary survey was conducted to collect information from the stakeholders on the frontline of the development process. The results indicate that due to its merger the village experienced water shortage due to increase in population and decrease in business. Further results reveal that any planning  process and implementation of such a jurisdictional change will take time, development is slow in the area  but needs to be given adequate time.

A STUDY ON URBAN MISSIONS IN PIMPRI-CHINCHWAD AND COMPARING ITS EASE OF LIVING INDEX WITH PUNE

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) (2005) was the initial step taken by the Government towards making urban settlements more sustainable and providing basic facilities for the citizens. The scheme was successful in initiating changes in the development of the cities. The Smart City Mission (2015-16) was launched as the next step in this initiative, to make the cities smarter. This paper attempts to understand this particular transformation in the city of Pimpri Chinchwad. Further, this paper attempts to understand the Ease of Living Index parameters and compare the parameters of the twin cities of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad and investigate the difference in their rankings. A secondary as well as a primary survey was undertaken. Observatory study, review of the published literature method was used for studying the secondary data. A primary survey of around 120 people in the city of Pimpri-Chinchwad as well as Pune was undertaken to collect the primary data. A qualitative analysis has been done for the data.  Transformation from one scheme to the other is not an easy task, when there is a huge population to cater to. This is what can be seen in the case of Pimpri-Chinchwad. Considering the Ease of Living Index ranking comparison, the citizens of PMC and PCMC chose Pune as a better place to live according to all the major index indicators. This was also the outcome of the main survey done by the Ministry of Urban Development.

FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY OF URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE IN INDIA- A Study of 15 Indian Cities

The Indian economy is growing fast and in the upcoming years it will require a large number of infrastructure services to match the demand and maintain an upward sloping growth curve. Striking the right balance between urban development and infrastructure growth will be the challenge. While cities in India are full of vibrant activity and energy, they are also becoming disordered, complex, and too often congested. It has now become imperative that helping Indian cities to function efficiently is mandatory for the better future of the country. This paper analyses the efficiency of infrastructural finances of fifteen Indian cities over 10 years using Data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA model is applied to calculate efficiency for each of the fifteen Indian Cities and rank them based on their efficiency score. As the importance of adequate infrastructure financing increases, the necessity to evaluate their efficiency also rises. DEA model is a pure self-evaluation model without considering the impact of the other decision-making units (DMU).

IMPACT OF URBANIZATION ON LAND USE AND LAND COVER PATTERN BY USING GIS- A CASE STUDY OF PUNE METROPOLITAN REGION

Pune Metropolitan Region consists of two municipal corporations of Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad; seven Municipal Councils, three Cantonment Boards, 13 census towns and 842 villages which are spread across an area of 7,256.46 sq.km. The total population of region was 7,541,946 according to 2011 census. Pune is the second largest fast developing urban agglomerations in Maharashtra and ranks eight at the national level. It is now rapidly changing from an education-administrative center to an important industrial and IT hub. The rapid expansion due to the region’s urbanization is due to rise in population and economic growth, causing a change in land use patterns as well as an increase in demand for land and destruction of natural resources. Land Use is a key element in temporal studies of urban imagery. Land-use change is the main driving force for Social and industrial development which affects local ecology, hydrology and environment. The present work studies the major land use changes during the 18-year period from 2000 to 2018 in Pune Metropolitan Region using an integrated approach of GIS. Change detection is very important in monitoring and managing urban development and natural resources because it provides a quantitative analysis of other environmental related activities and the spatial distribution of population.

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD CHOICE OF RESIDENTS OF PUNE CITY: BUILDING SUSTAINABLE NEIGHBOURHOODS

Pune ranked 1st in the Ease of Living index and it is one of the fastest growing urban agglomerations in India. The 21st century is the era of urbanization of India, but all the perks of urbanization are not equally available to people residing in urban areas. This research paper focused on the three tier problem of urbanization in Pune. The first tier was to establish whether Pune suffers from lopsided development or not. The second tier was attempting to understand the reasons for lopsided development and lastly, the economic consequences of the problem. This paper considers six villages that were merged under the jurisdiction Pune Municipal Corporation as a case study, to understand the current state of development there. Both qualitative and quantitative tools have been used to analyze and attempt to study the three tier problem. This study found that, in-line with the World Bank report which stated that South-Asian countries suffer from lop-sided development, Pune also suffers from it.

IMPACT OF URBANIZATION ON THE LAND USE PATTERN AND CLIMATE CHANGE ACROSS INDIAN STATES

Today urban pockets around the world are facing an issue of increasing population. This increasing urban population is one of the key reasons for rapid urbanization. Urbanization supports concretization that leads to increase in the built-up areas and loss in the vegetation cover. Due to this, many researchers have found cities experiencing warmer temperatures and depleting environmental factors in terms of land use changes. Urbanization has brought in the wave of industrialization and thus, has changed the spectral contribution to the domestic products of nation and states. The aim of this study is to observe the rising urbanization in the Indian states and link them with the trends observed in the land use pattern, temperature and state gross domestic product. The study covers data over a period of twenty five years across twenty five states of India. The paper analyses the data by calculating the absolute changes in the values, compounded annual growth rate and percentage share trend analysis of the variables used in the study.

A STUDY OF PUNE: A CASE OF MERGED VILLAGES

Today urban pockets around the world are facing an issue of increasing population. This increasing urban population is one of the key reasons for rapid urbanization. Urbanization supports concretization that leads to increase in the built-up areas and loss in the vegetation cover. Due to this, many researchers have found cities experiencing warmer temperatures and depleting environmental factors in terms of land use changes. Urbanization has brought in the wave of industrialization and thus, has changed the spectral contribution to the domestic products of nation and states. The aim of this study is to observe the rising urbanization in the Indian states and link them with the trends observed in the land use pattern, temperature and state gross domestic product. The study covers data over a period of twenty five years across twenty five states of India. The paper analyses the data by calculating the absolute changes in the values, compounded annual growth rate and percentage share trend analysis of the variables used in the study.