Only 15% Use Public Transport? The NSO Data Vindicates ROTE
6 October 2026
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I have just read the National Statistics Office (NSO) survey on commute patterns in India, and I must say: I am neither surprised nor comforted by what it reveals.
Only 15% of workers use public transport such as buses, trains, trams or auto-rickshaws, while 46% rely on two-wheelers or cars. In urban areas—where public transport infrastructure is best—53% of workers use two-wheelers and 5.7% travel by car. These numbers are not accidental. They are the predictable outcome of a system that has systematically failed to make public transport attractive and has left personal vehicles as the path of least resistance.
I Have Been Warning About This for a Decade
For the past 10+ years, I have raised the alarm about India's addiction to personal transport. In 2016, I posed the central question: "Why people don't use public transport but opt for their own private vehicles?" And I outlined the answer then:
• Own car is available at a moment's notice (Convenience) • Own car is air-conditioned (Comfort) • Own car is not packed with "Standee Passengers" (Crowding) • At public transport bus stops, there are long queues—or worse, crowds!
Nothing has fundamentally changed in the decade since I wrote those words. The problem has only deepened. India's vehicle population continues to explode. The NSO data shows us where we are headed: a nation where private vehicles dominate because public transport remains unattractive, even in cities.
The Real Cost of This Choice
But here is what the NSO survey does not measure directly: the environmental and social harm baked into this commute pattern.
From 2018 onwards, I have been developing a framework I call Project ROTE—Reduction of Transport Emissions. At its core is a simple but powerful concept: quantify the pollution footprint of each vehicle using a HARM QUOTIENT, and then levy a behaviour-linked tax—a TRANS-TAX—that makes polluting choices automatically costly for the vehicle owner.
The HARM QUOTIENT is not arbitrary. It captures:
• Speed and idling patterns • Braking intensity • Trip frequency • Vehicle emission class • Congestion footprint
From these data points—all measurable via NaVIC satellite tracking and vehicle sensors—we compute a TRANS-SCORE. Then we levy the TRANS-TAX: "Cleaner drivers pay less. Polluters pay more. Behaviour changes—not through fines and courts, but through real-time economic signals."
How ROTE Addresses the Public Transport Problem
Now, here is the crucial insight: ROTE is not just about penalizing polluters. It is about creating economic incentives that, for the first time, make public transport the rational choice.
Today, a personal car owner pays a fixed road tax or registration tax—roughly the same whether they drive 10 km a day or 100 km a day. There is no automatic penalty for congestion, pollution, or wasteful idle time. The system does not discriminate between a fuel-efficient EV and a 15-year-old diesel truck. Under this regime, of course people will choose personal vehicles—they have already paid for them, and the marginal cost of using them appears zero.
ROTE inverts this logic.
When TRANS-TAX is levied hourly, in real-time, based on actual pollution generated, the economics of commuting change overnight:
A personal car parked on your street 21 hours a day, used 3 hours a day, becomes a liability. Every hour it sits there—visible, taking up public space, generating ambient congestion—it racks up a TRANS-TAX bill. The vehicle owner begins to ask: "Why own this at all when shared public transport costs less?"
Two-wheelers—accounting for 43% of work commutes—face the same reckoning. In congested urban corridors, a two-wheeler's idling, stop-and-go pattern, and per-capita emission yield a high HARM QUOTIENT. The owner sees the daily TRANS-TAX debit and considers: "What if I took the metro instead?"
Public transport users—currently 15% despite decades of infrastructure investment—become the bargain option. A bus carrying 50 passengers generates a TRANS-TAX per vehicle, not per passenger. The per-capita emissions and per-capita tax burden are orders of magnitude lower. The economics become undeniable.
The Data Proves My Point
The NSO survey tells us that 28.3% of people reach their workplace on foot—a modal share that would be unthinkable in a modern economy if people had genuine choice. Walking accounts for a third of rural workers (36%) and just 14% in urban areas, showing the brutal reality: in cities, people need motorized transport, but they are choosing personal motors over public transit.
But now compare student mobility. Among students, buses account for 29.5% of trips and walking for 37%—a far higher public transport share. Why? Because student mobility is not yet dominated by personal vehicle ownership. They have not yet bought cars. Once they do, the NSO data suggest they will abandon buses just like their parents have.
ROTE would prevent this cycle. By making the true environmental cost of a personal vehicle visible and automatic through TRANS-TAX, we would shift behavior before cars are even purchased.
The Mechanism: Harm Quotient, Trans-Score, Trans-Tax
Let me be concrete. ROTE proposes that every vehicle on Indian roads be tracked in real-time via NaVIC satellites, each assigned a HARM QUOTIENT computed from speed, idling time, braking patterns, trip frequency, and vehicle emission class, with a dynamic TRANS-SCORE updated continuously and a TRANS-TAX levied in proportion to harm caused—automatically deducted via FASTag or UPI, without stopping the vehicle.
The projected outcome: a 50% reduction in PM2.5 and AQI levels in major Indian cities within 2 years.
How does this relate to the NSO finding that only 15% use public transport? Simple:
If you make private vehicles expensive-to-operate (via TRANS-TAX) and public transport subsidized (using TRANS-TAX revenue and a dedicated Green Mobility Fund), the modal choice equation flips.
Today, a person in Mumbai spends an average of Rs 785 per month on commuting. Under ROTE, a personal vehicle owner commuting 20 km daily would see TRANS-TAX bills that could easily exceed Rs 2,000–3,000 per month, depending on emission class and congestion profile. A metro pass costs Rs 500–1,000. The choice becomes obvious.
Why This Matters Now
The NSO survey was conducted between July 2025 and June 2026. The data confirms what I have been arguing for a decade: voluntary measures do not work. Decades of "awareness campaigns," "green initiatives," and "sustainable transport" messaging have failed to shift India's commute modal share toward public transport. If anything, the trend is moving in the opposite direction.
ROTE is not another voluntary program. It is a technology-enforced emission reduction system—one that makes polluting behaviour automatically costly for the vehicle owner, without requiring any manual enforcement.
The NSO has given us the diagnosis. ROTE is the cure.
What Now?
I have submitted ROTE to India's Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change and to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. I have outlined the technology stack: NaVIC satellites, FASTag RFID sensors, IoT microcontrollers in all vehicles, real-time cloud analytics, and V2V spectrum for vehicle-to-vehicle communication.
I have also proposed a 2-year pilot simulation in Chennai, tracking 1,000 vehicles across all fuel types (petrol, diesel, CNG, EV) to model exactly how HARM QUOTIENT and TRANS-TAX would reshape commute behavior.
The NSO data make the case for urgency. Only 15% use public transport. Traffic snarls are a fact of life. Air quality remains a public health emergency. We cannot solve this with parking bans, bus lanes, or pretty new metro stations. We need to change the economic logic of commuting itself.
ROTE does that.
Hemen Parekh
Mumbai
6 October 2026
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