Nagpur Smart and Sustainable City Development Corporation Ltd (NSSCDCL) has organised a half day workshop on “Public Bike Sharing” along with the City of Karlsruhe with support from EU – International Urban Cooperation program

 On February 6th 2020, NSSCDCL has organised a half day workshop on public bike sharing at the conference hall of NSSCDCL. The half day workshop was organised to convene all the relevant stakeholders like NSSCDCL, Nagpur Municipal Corporation, cityuniversity, representatives from the City of Karlsruhe and IUC team to deliberate upon the most suitable model to implement public bike sharing in Nagpur city.This workshop was organised in line with the ongoing participation of Nagpur and Karlsruhe in the IUC program. The initial exchange visits between the two cities allowed them to interact on wider topics of common interest which later on culminated into the selection of a specific topic of cooperation i.e. Public Bike Sharing program at a city-wide scale.

During the workshop, a brief presentation on feasibility study prepared for Nagpur public bike sharing program in Nagpur smart city area was made by the representatives of Grant Thornton, the mobility experts from Karlsruhe have shared their experiences on the role of selecting the best mode of transport after carefully understanding the city characteristics and traffic scenarios. They have also stressed upon providing an appropriate mix of transportation solutions to the citizens so that daily commutation becomes a rather relishing activity. Further, the experts from Karlsruhe have also presented various policy level interventions, role of private players and current status of public bike sharing program at Karlsruhe. The representative from the private service provider on PBS has shared their experiences of working in other Indian cities and their modus operandi. They also suggested various bike sharing models suitable for Nagpur city.Later during the workshop, a presentation on financing aspects of public bike sharing was made by the senior expert from IUC, Mr. Neelabh Singh. He has introduced various innovative financing mechanisms prevalent at the global scale and offered to guide NSSCDCL to choose an appropriate model for any upcoming PBS program in the city. He has also shared the international case studies on PBS and their financial aspects.Dr. Sonawane, CEO of NSSCDCL has facilitated a brainstorming session after encouraging all the relevant partners to suggest an appropriate model for Nagpur so that NMT could be integrated into public transport. He has also highlighted the need of providing a clean and efficient transport to the citizens of Nagpur so that city can progress in a justifiable manner.

For more information contact Mr. Ashish Verma, IUC/India, averma@iuc-india.eu