Poor transport can make schools inaccessible to many in Mumbai: IITB study

Researchers assessed whether a region had adequate public transport, uniform distribution and a sufficient number of schools and how these factors can help achieve equitable distribution of school facilities for children. 

Gopal Patil and Gajanand Sharma from the Department of civil engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay conducted an analysis to measure how private and existing public transport systems were accessible for children to go to school. The study focused on the Greater Mumbai region and the research was published in ‘Cities’, an Elsevier journal. 

The researchers assessed whether a region had adequate public transport, uniform distribution and a sufficient number of schools in the area and how these factors can help achieve equitable distribution of school facilities for the children.  They collected information with several variable parameters such as time taken to travel to schools, number of students enrolled in the schools, ease of getting public and private transport and many more.  

Access to public transport poor for 10-40 minutes of travel time to school

They analysed 4,308 schools situated in the 577 zones of the Greater Mumbai region. The researchers used Geographic Information System (GIS) software to locate schools, nearest bus stops and other relevant geographical parameters. They then assessed how each school was connected to transport facilities. They then categorised the access to schools based on the time taken to travel to schools: 10 to up to 40 minutes. 

They then mapped the availability of transport facilities to the schools within a zone and between the other 576 zones. The analysis indicates that access to public transport is relatively poor for 10-40 minutes of travel time to school in many areas. Accessibility by private transport was more easily available than public transport for these travel times. However, for the time range of 40-60 minutes or even 90 minutes, there appears to be little gap in accessibility between public and private transport means along the railway line.  

Most adequate facilities along rail routes 

“We found that most of the adequate facilities were along the rail routes. Areas surrounding them offered equitable access to transportation,” said Patil.  The researchers also found that high schools were lesser in number than primary schools and also situated far off. Moreover, the accessibility of secondary schools was lower than that of the primary schools, adding to the inequity. The study suggested that Greater Mumbai needs to increase the number of schools, buses, and local train routes in several areas. 

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