Workshop on Vision for Megaregional Mobility

Jointly organized by Web Science Lab, IIIT-Bangalore and BeST Cluster, IISc

14th February 2024, IIIT-Bangalore

Workshop Registration: https://forms.office.com/r/q4wERGtxEb

About the Workshop

Today’s highly clustered knowledge economy is centered in and around global cities. And it is not just individual cities and metropolitan areas that power the world economy. Increasingly, the real driving force is larger combinations of cities and metro areas called mega-regions. Development of megaregions that are made up of a network of interconnected cities with rapid transport options between them not only serves to decongest existing urban centres, but also act as drivers of economic growth.

Karnataka is among the fastest growing states in India, with a compounded annual growth rate of 9% in the year 2021-22. However, Karnataka has also one of the highest disparities in terms of population distribution. The population of the second biggest city in Karnataka is less than 10% of the population of the biggest city in the state, with the population of the biggest urban conglomeration, the metropolitan area of Bengaluru, growing at a compounded annual rate of 3.5%.

Traffic woes and mobility crises in Bengaluru are a daily affair, which only exacerbates in times of monsoon. Despite several initiatives, Bengaluru continues to crawl and has the dubious distinction of being the second slowest city in the world. There is a dire need to develop a megaregion around Bengaluru with a network of multiple growth centres to bring about long-term sustainable solutions. A megaregion is a network of interconnected cities each of which is an independently administered economic growth centre. They would be interconnected with rapid transport options for both freight and people, enabling different growth centres to balance out one another.

In this workshop, we are looking for multiple stakeholders from this proposed megaregion to come together to form a vision committee and create a detailed roadmap for designing this megaregion. Some of the key discussion points for this vision committee include the following:

  • Identification of key growth centres in this megaregion including proposals for formation of new townships to promote
    economic growth.
  • Detailed proposals for the nature of the RRTS system connecting this megaregion, including the different modalities involved, and identification of key transit hubs.
  • Identification of specific agencies, including private partners who can play key roles in the design of this megaregion.
  • Inputs for specific policy changes and/or interventions to facilitate creation of this megaregion.
  • Identifying and protecting specific environmental and ecologically sensitive zones in the design of this megaregion.
  • Creation of roadmap, timelines, and expected outcomes.

Key Co-ordinators

  • Prof. Srinath Srinivasa, Professor and Dean (R&D), Web Science Lab, IIIT-Bangalore
  • Prof. Abdul Pinjari, IISc Bangalore

Agenda

Forenoon Session :  R109, Ramanujan Block
Time Details
11.00 – 11.15Introductory remarks
11.15 – 11.30Welcome address by Director, IIIT-B
11.30 – 12.00Setting the context: Megaregion mobility around Bengaluru
12.00 – 01.15Roundtable Discussion
01.00 – 02.00Networking lunch
Afternoon Session:  A307, Aryabhata Block
02.00 – 03.00Breakout sessions and Report-outs
03.00 – 03.10High Tea and Closing

Resources

Slide deck for introductory presentation

Bhoomika A P

Bhoomika is a PhD student in Web Science Lab. She holds MTech in Computer Science and Engineering from Visveswaraya Technological University. Prior to joining IIITB she worked as an Assistant Professor at B.M.S college of Engineering and Presidency University, Bangalore with a total 6.5 years of teaching experience. Her areas of interests include Web mining, Semantic Web and Machine Learning.

To know more, please visit her LinkedIn profile.