The 16th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference cum Expo 2023 was held from October 27–29, 2023. The Conference was inaugurated today by the Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, Shri Hardeep Singh Puri in the presence of other dignitaries and delegates. Senior officers from Central and State Governments, policy makers, Managing Directors of Metro Rail Companies, Chief Executives of transport undertakings, International experts, professionals, academicians and students are also participating in this event.
This year, the Conference is focussed on the theme of ‘Integrated and Resilient Urban Transport’. It emphasised on designing and implementation of efficient, high quality, integrated and resilient Urban Transport systems in the cities. Rapid climate change and its impact on city transport system calls for integrated and resilient transport system to meet the mobility needs of public. The innovations have led to a wide range of transport options to emerge, thereby widening the choice available to commuters. The need of the hour is to strengthen the resilience of transport systems right from the planning stage.
Narayankumar Sreekumar, Associate Director, Electric Mobility Initiative, Shakti, was invited to the roundtable discussion on ‘Policy Interventions For Clean Energy Transition in Transportation,’ where he said “To accelerate the transition towards zero-emission vehicles, there is an urgent need to enable a competitive ecosystem through supply-side interventions including zero-emissions targets or obligations and market-based trading mechanisms. Through these interventions, we could facilitate competition and innovation among OEMs, which could drive down the cost and accelerate the transition.”
Priti Shukla, Programme Manager, Electric Mobility Initiative, Shakti participated in the roundtable discussion on’ Integrated and Sustainable Urban Freight and Logistics’, where she said “Access to affordable financial products and building resilient electric vehicle charging infrastructure are the key enablers for accelerating Zero-Emission Urban freight in India”
The discussion was around leveraging multimodality and public-private partnership for urban freight movement, accessing sustainable technologies and finance, and developing policies and infrastructure to facilitate quick shift to sustainable urban transport and logistics.