Accelerating Delhi’s Mobility Transition

India is undergoing a mobility transition. This transition is most active in cities where rising demand for mobility services is prompting policymakers and business leaders to reimagine how to meet this demand. Mobility solutions are leapfrogging conventional approaches and building on opportunities that have been created by steeply falling technology costs and the emergence of innovative business models.

Cities in India are stepping up to build, pilot, and scale urban mobility solutions that are clean, shared, and people-centric. Delhi has a significant role to play in this transition. Most recently, the Delhi government has developed a draft electric vehicle (EV) policy to accelerate EV adoption in Delhi and complement its efforts to address vehicular pollution.

To translate policy action into progress on the ground, the Delhi government, through the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDC-D), and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) partnered to host the Urban Mobility Lab—a platform that supports Indian cities in identifying, implementing, and scaling pilot projects and solutions that transform how people and goods move. The Urban Mobility Lab is led by RMI and was announced by NITI Aayog in November 2017.

As part of the Urban Mobility Lab initiative in Delhi, DDC-D and RMI hosted a Solutions Workshop on 26 and 27 June 2019 to work collaboratively with government and industry leaders to design mobility solutions for implementation. This report is a reflection of the discussions and work that took place at the workshop. It aims to share experiences, key insights, and lessons learned to support policymaking and the scaling of innovative mobility solutions in Delhi and other Indian cities.

Although the workshop focused on Delhi, public- and private-sector actors across India’s mobility system can take inspiration from these concepts and build on them to accelerate India’s transition to a clean, shared, and people-centric mobility future.