B) Decrease of the public transports

1) Overview of the subway system

As three Indian cities are within the top 15 largest populated cities in the world, it is needed for these megalopolis’ to have an efficient public transportation system. The transportation system of a city, and more globally, of a country, is very important for the social cohesion; it also is a mark of social increase for a country. These three cities are Mumbai, which is in the sixth position of the most populated cities with 18 196 000 citizens in 2005, Delhi is in the ninth position, with 17 582 000 citizens in 2005 and Kolkata is in the fifteenth position with 14 277 000 citizens in 2005. The following map indicates the cities in India that have more than 1 million inhabitants.

It is essential for the newly industrialized countries to have a transportation system. Moreover, the Indian cases are really significant on how the transportation system is important because these cities are wide and it would be very long for a worker to get from one end of the city to another by foot or by bike.
The metro system in India is actually very recent; the politics took a lot of time to launch these uneasy, long and expensive projects. The idea of building an efficient mass transportation infrastructure first came in the late 70’s when the prevision of demographic growth became a problem in terms of pollution. The specialists understood that the Indian population, which will be the most important in the years to come, needed a cheap, green and efficient way to transport citizens.
The projects took between 15 and 30 years to be launched, according to the city.

Subway characteristics of Kolkatta, Delhi and Mumbai

| Date of launch | N° of lines | N° of stations | Frequentation | Kolkatta | 1984 | 3 | 23 | -------------------- | Delhi | 2002 | 3 | 83 | 1 550 000/day | Mumbai | 2006 | 2 | 13 | 510 000/day |

Advantages of the subway in India

There are of course many positive