How your travelling experience will change for the better

India will shortly unveil a 'One Nation-One Card policy' for public transport that will entail connectivity between various modes of transport

India will soon have a single card for multiple modes of transport on the lines of London’s oyster card.

The country will shortly unveil a ‘One Nation-One Card policy’ for public transport that will entail connectivity between various modes of transport, said Amitabh Kant, Niti Aayog CEO.

Such cards are available in many international cities.

In London, for instance, you can buy one card (oyster card) and travel on the bus, underground metro and even suburban trains using it.

While the Indian mobility market is likely to see dynamic changes, it is expected that the biggest disruption will play out in the battery storage space, which is estimated to be a $300 billion opportunity in the years to come, he said.

The storage battery industry will cater to future demands of the mobility industry and the renewable energy industry as batteries alone can bring in the balancing factor for the infirm power.

As India looks out for possible alternatives, four technology-driven trends - electrification, shared mobility, connectivity and autonomous driving - are leading the automotive industry.

“The focus of our mobility strategy is on sustainable modes of public transport, transport oriented planning and digitisation among others.

"The objective of the strategy is to plan for the citizens of India first, rather than focusing on vehicles alone, by providing sustainable mobility and accessibility by switching to cleaner mode of transportation such as electric, ethanol, methanol, CNG, LNG and hydrogen fuel cells,” Kant said.

Manoj Kohli, chairman, CII Task Force on Electric Mobility and Battery Storage, and executive chairman, SB Energy (SoftBank Group), said, “For building a robust mobility ecosystem in the country, it will be important to strike joint venture agreements between the government and industry to build on the infrastructure requirements and to improve the quality of transmission of power of charging stations.”

Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters