A clogged urban future

A friend mentioned to me yesterday, an interesting calculation about traffic congestion on roads in my hometown, Pune in India. This calculation is made by an engineer, who works in the roads department of the Municipal corporation. According to this calculation, if all the four wheeled vehicles plying on city roads are made to stand in a straight line, touching bumper to bumper, the total length works out as double the length of all city roads taken together. Such is the congestion of vehicles in the Pune city. It is a common experience here, that if vehicular traffic moving smoothly on any busy road is interrupted even for few seconds, for reasons such as a vehicle pulling up from parking slot or a vehicle taking a U turn, vehicles start piling up on both sides almost instantly. If this interruption continues for more than a half or a full minute, we have regular traffic jam, which may last for any length of time. Unfortunately, this clogging of traffic, is not the only clogging we face here. We have water clogging the roads, whenever there are few spells or sharp showers of rain. We have clogging of garbage all the time, with garbage cans overflowing and removal mechanisms unable to cope up with piling garbage.

I recently came across a report describing the precarious situations faced by the residents in some of the Asian cities. This report in a way removed one disbelief nurtured by me in my mind, that my hometown holds the distinction of being filthiest or with most congested roads. This however is no solace to me, that most of the urban centers in Asia are suffering the same fate as my hometown.

Talking about cities in India first, Mumbai with more than a 12 Million inhabitants has a population density of 20,000 inhabitants per square KM, which makes it one of the world's most densely populated cities. Its packed suburban trains carry more that 7 million people every day. Every year more than 3000 commuters are killed while travelling, sometimes falling from open doors or hit while crossing the tracks. During rush hours, trains are so crowded that it is difficult to breathe even. Mumbai offers the best economic opportunities for the migrant labour, who keep arriving in large numbers every day to Mumbai and since housing is almost impossible to get in Mumbai, they often build shanties on river banks (such as river 'Mithi'), storm drains and even foot paths. Since they can not avail of any civil services, they just dump garbage anywhere they find some space. This clogs the storm drains and impedes the flow of storm rainwater.

Toady, out of India's 1.2-billion population, only 30 percent live in cities, far lower than the 50.6 percent in China or the 70-80 percent in developed countries. Just imagine, what would happen to Mumbai, if 50 % of Indian population migrates to cities. Even at present, with an astronomical rise in the population, pollution and the micro weather of the cities are becoming quite intolerable. This fact and the high living standards of country's burgeoning middle class in the cities, have created great demand for air conditioners, microwave ovens, washing machines and other electrical items. This has no wonder, created a great strain on the power requirements. We have seen how this strain can affect a city in last week's power outage all over north India.

Considering the Asian cities outside India, Dhaka city has already become a moribund city and is facing the worst transport infrastructure problems in its history. In January 2009, the government promised to tackle the crisis with an array of ambitious rail, bus and road projects, but most are still on paper. Intelligentsia in Bangladesh feel that it is dying fast and there is no hope that it can be saved. However, traffic jams are by no means unique to Dhaka. In the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, experts predict that with its aging bus network and lack of a suburban train system, the capital will reach total gridlock by 2014. A global commuter satisfaction survey carried out in 2011 ranks Jakarta in the bottom position.

Bangkok and Manila have been hit by the most devastating floods in decades over past year. Yet, on the outskirts of Manila, vital forested areas have been destroyed to make way for housing developments catering to growing middle and upper classes and within the city squatters have been building shanties at their own will. This rapid urbanization without proper planning is blocking the natural waterways . This and the neglected drainage systems, are the two major factors behind the deadly floods that have battered the Philippine capital Manila in recent times. Thailand capital Bangkok has been actually built on swampland. But as building boom shows no sign of abating with apartment towers mushrooming around the city, the city is slowly sinking and risks being below sea level in half a century from now. Bangkok also depends heavily on ground water to meet the growing needs of its factories and 12 million inhabitants. Aggressive groundwater extraction is taking a heavy toll as groundwater levels are dropping lower and lower.

According to experts, the principal reasons for this disastrous situation faced by urban conglomerates in Asia are not difficult to find. Poor strategic planning, paltry investment in infrastructure and a lack of political will, have made these overcrowded cities highly vulnerable to the pressures from ever increasing population density, shortage of water and climate change. McKinsey Global Institute research centre reports that India alone needs 350-400 KM (around 250 miles) of new metros and subways a year and 19,000-25,000 KM of roads. If we talk of Asia as a whole, these figures would rise to astronomical levels.

The living conditions in the cities of Asia have deteriorated to such an extent that even with ever increasing prosperity, the inhabitants are still forced to dwell their lives in the same squalid conditions faced by them, when they were not so well off.

Is their a solution? At least in India, my answer is negative. With the democratic set up, there is almost no chance of any political leadership taking up unpleasant corrective steps. All major cities in India appear to be doomed. How long would they survive, one may never know. But the process might have already began.

14 August 2012

For Russian aerospace industry, a dream ends with a disaster

In the month of February 2006, the then Russian president, signed a decree creating a huge aviation entity by combining the nation's six major aircraft design and manufacturing companies into a single holding with substantial state control. The companies that were merged together were all Aviation giants of the Soviet era, namely Sukhoi, Mikoyan, Ilyushin, Irkut, Tupolev, and Yakovlev and were now merged into a company named United Aircraft Corporation. Out of the companies that were merged, Mikoyan and Sukhoi are famous names for Military fighter aircraft whereas Ilyushin was known for it's military aircraft used for transport. Other companies mainly manufactured civilian aircraft and cargo freighters.

Along with the merger, it was also acknowledged that Russian aerospace industry was withdrawing from the wide- body passenger jet business but plans were afoot to manufacture a state of the art, passenger jet with 100 seats, which would compete with Embraer from Brazil or Canadian Bombardier. The new aircraft code named as SSJ 100, first took to the skies in 2008 and was intended to replace the Tupolev-134, the workhorse of Soviet short-haul aviation, which was involved in several disasters in the last decade and which many airlines such as Aeroflot have now withdrawn from service.

The plane was designed and manufactured by Sukhoi's civil aircraft division in a US $1 billion Superjet project. Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica, which is part of the partially state-owned Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica. was successfully wooed to take a stake in the project and now holds 25% share in Sukhai's civili aviation division. Commercial flights started in 2011. 'Armevia' the national carrier of Armenia and Aeroflot are using about six to seven planes over short haul routes. Sukhai also have managed to sign deals with Italy's Blue Panorama Airlines for 12 planes and with Mexico's Interjet for 15 planes.

Things were indeed looking rosy when a road show was planned to show case the plane in interested markets. In the first part of this promotional tour, the plane was flown to Kazakhstan and then to Pakistan. From here, the plane was supposed to fly to the Indonesian capital Jakarta. However some strange action was observed by airlines watchers. The particular aircraft that was flown to Pakistan, bearing serial number 97005, was suddenly flown back to Russia and another aircraft bearing serial number 97004, was flown to Jakarta instead. Company spokesman has refused to give reasons for this action and has just said that aircraft went back “to take part in tests”. In Jakarta, the aircraft made two demonstrational flights on May 9^th 2012 with much fanfare. On that fateful day, the aircraft, on it's third flight, suddenly disappeared from the air controller Radar screens. A big hunt was immediately launched by Indonesian authorities. The Aircraft was found to have slammed into a dormant volcano after takeoff. Wreckage of the plane was located near mount Selak in west Java, killing at least 45 people, mostly Indonesian airline representatives and eight Russians. The loss of the plane naturally sent shock waves through the Russian aviation industry. The plane was piloted by Alexander Yablontsev, a hugely experienced and considered, Sukhoi’s leading test pilot, for the Superjet.

Number of controversies are now raging between Russians and local Indonesian authorities. Russians accuse the air traffic controllers that the plane was asked to fly at 6000 ft, when there are number of mountain peaks around with 7000 ft. Height. This was denied by Indonesians. Russians have announced a compensation of US$ 50000 to the next of kin. Indonesians have asked for US$ 1,35000 for each victim. The black box from the plane has now been found in semi burnt state. Indonesians want to check up the box before handing it over to Russians.

The experts may or may not find the reason for disaster, but the project has taken a big hit. Russian defense and aviation experts agree that any catastrophe of this dimension, greatly damages the reputation of the type of plane involved. With this kind of disaster happening on the demonstrational flight of the aircraft itself, only few very brave airlines, may opt for this aircraft in future. Sukhoi are always considered as legendary Russian plane makers. Their hopes of becoming a major player in the short haul aviation market, have been dashed at least for the present.

16 May 2012