Will pod taxi fix Mumbai’s last-mile link?

MUmbai, the financial working capital of bharat, which has o'er the yesteryear decennary seen a massive infra push, is now set to build India’s first pod taxi network: an 8.8-km elevated corridor through the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), the city’s busiest business district.Built under a ₹1,016-crore public-private partnership model, the system will deploy driverless electric pods seating five to eight passengers. Running on dedicated guideways with 38 stops, the pods will connect Bandra and Kurla railway stations to commercial hubs such as Jio World Centre, Bharat Diamond Bourse, SEBI, NSE among others.Operating on demand at speeds of up to 40 kmph, the pods promise zero-emission, point-to-point rides. Construction is likely to begin soon, with operations targeted around 2027 under a Design-Finance-Build-Operate-Transfer (DFBOT) framework.“This system will boost last-mile connectivity, help reduce congestion and provide a new, efficient mode of transportation,” says an official at Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the nodal agency for the project.Similarly, Delhi’s November 2025 Urban Mobility Vision proposes pod taxis in high-density zones like Rohini-Rithala and Narela.However, experts warn that pod taxis, though innovative for specific corridors, won’t solve India’s chronic last-mile crisis, which requires deeper, systemic fixes.The weakest link in a massive systemOver the past two decades, India’s megacities — Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and others — have invested billions in Metro rail networks. Delhi Metro now spans nearly 400 kilometres and continues to expand. Mumbai and Kolkata too are building multiple corridors.Yet, the final leg of the journey — the distance from a station to home, office or any other destination — continues to be chaotic and unreliable.Commuters exiting Metro stations or transit hubs often confront a swarm of unregulated e-rickshaws and shared autos, and congested junctions and encroached footpaths ensure walking is barely an option. No wonder then, short trips of 1-2 kilometres can take 20 minutes or much more during peak-hour traffic. For many, this uncertainty undoes all the benefits of Metro’s fast, air-conditioned travel.This gap, experts say, is primarily responsible for the growing congestion on roads despite the expanding Metro network in cities, because when the last mile is inconvenient, commuters often prefer or revert to private vehicles.An April 2025 study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), titled “Neighborhood public transit services: Situational analysis of bus-based public transport supply in Delhi”, highlights this imbalance. Six in ten daily trips in Delhi are under 4 kilometres — yet long-haul buses dominate the network. More strikingly, over 31% of Delhi’s neighbourhoods lack a bus stop within 500 metres, meaning nearly one in three to four neighbourhoods does not have convenient access to public bus services.Similarly, a survey of Delhi Metro users by the World Resources Institute (WRI) found that first- and last-mile segments together account for only about 18% of total travel distance but nearly 40% of time and 48% of cost, underscoring how inefficient access modes distort the overall journey.Fragmented solutions and failed fixesIndian cities have tried multiple approaches to fix the last mile problem, but failed.Over the years, feeder buses were introduced by agencies such as the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) to connect stations with surrounding neighbourhoods. Many of these services suffered from low frequency, thin ridership and poor synchronisation with Metro timings.Informal modes took over. While e-rickshaws and shared autos provide flexibility and frequency, their proliferation has only created chaotic stations, safety risks and traffic snarls. Most operate outside unified fare systems, without any route rationalisation, digital tracking or any service standards.Non-motorised solutions remain far-fetched as footpaths continue to be encroached, broken or discontinuous; cycle tracks, where they exist, are mostly fragmented. Public bike-sharing schemes in cities like Delhi and Bengaluru have struggled with theft, maintenance challenges and low uptake in dangerous traffic environments. App-based shuttles remain limited in scale.“The real problem is that the last mile is no one’s problem,” says Amit Bhatt, India managing director of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). “Metros are planned in isolation, road agencies build roads, and transport undertakings run buses. To bridge this gap, we need empowered and financially independent unified transport authorities — similar to Transport for London — that prioritise integrated planning.”While many Indian cities have created Unified Metropolitan Transport Authorities (UMTAs), Bhatt argues that most remain coordinative bodies without real executive powers.This lack of a unified authority means individual transit agencies continue to work within their own silos.Delhi Metro no longer operates feeder buses directly, but has integrated other options. According to Anuj Dayal, principal executive director (Corporate Communications) at DMRC, around 1,500 e-autos operate from over 40 Metro stations, carrying roughly 53,000 passengers daily. The network has also tied up with aggregators such as Rapido and Bharat Taxi.DMRC says it follows a data-driven approach to identify last-mile gaps.“We assess travel demand through mapping of mobility patterns, field inputs and accessibility of residential and commercial clusters,” says Dayal. “In areas such as Dwarka and Rohini, we realised peripheral housing societies lacked seamless connectivity, and e-auto services were introduced accordingly.”But, the volume of passengers served by its feeder modes is a very insignificant fraction of the 6.5-7 million daily journeys undertaken across the Metro networkWalking the last mileIn fact, contrasts with cities abroad could not have been starker. In London, for example, planning prioritises active travel (walking and cycling) over public transport, then comes lower-density modes, with single-occupancy vehicles at the bottom. “Our bus network is designed so that 96% of London’s population lives within 400 metres — a 10-minute walk — from a bus stop. We maintain high-quality, obstruction-free footpaths and safe crossings to encourage walking,” says Shashi Verma, director of strategy, Transport for London (TfL).Delhi Metro’s average distance between two stations — approximately 1.3 km — reflects its design as a ‘trunk’ system for long-distance travel, say experts. In contrast, the Manhattan subway system features an average spacing of barely 400–500 metres in its densest corridors. This tighter grid supports shorter walking distances, doing away with the need for last-mile modes.In 2006, Delhi Metro declared a mission to ensure one station within 500m of every residential colony in the city by 2020. But, today, Metro is nowhere is close to that target.“This is regarded as a norm. However, in the case of Delhi NCR, we must keep in mind that this urban agglomeration is already among the biggest worldwide and is rapidly expanding with new residential and commercial areas coming up fast,” says Dayal. “The Delhi Metro network is keeping pace and will be more than 500 kilometres long in the years to come. Further, if we add RRTS (Regional Rapid Transit System) and other Metros being built in Gurugram and Noida, the total coverage will be quite massive –– covering almost every neighbourhood in the region”.The ICCT study proposed a neighborhood-level approach for expanding bus services, especially through the deployment of smaller electric buses designed to serve short, intrazonal routes. It advised limiting new neighbourhood routes to a 5-kilometre service radius from depots, to minimise dead kilometres and ensure the feasibility of electric buses with opportunity charging needs.“First- and last-mile connectivity, especially in low-density or hard-to-reach areas, remains a key barrier to expanding bus services in cities,” Bhatt says. “That’s why cities worldwide are introducing neighbourhood buses — like Japan’s community buses, the US’s neighbourhood circulators, and Germany’s quartiersbusse”.Shreya Gadepalli, a mobility expert, emphasises that walking remains the most efficient way to cover the last mile, provided it is “safe, short, and ideally under five minutes”. However, she argues that urban design remains fundamentally flawed. “Everything is planned with cars in mind. The people designing our cities don’t use public transport; they travel by car and plan for cars,” she says. This results in infrastructure like skywalks and foot-over bridges, which she views as tools to “clear pedestrians” out of the way of motorists rather than truly serving them.She also points to the alarming decline of bus fleets in cities like Mumbai. “There was a time when Mumbai had such a large fleet of double-decker buses that ensured efficient last-mile connectivity from suburban stations. But, the fleet has reduced from a peak of nearly 6,000 to under 3,000,” she notes, highlighting a widening gap in mobility in the city.The capital’s new neighbourhood-first bus modelDelhi, meanwhile, is adopting what it calls a “neighbourhood-first” bus model — to fill the last-mile gap. Under its DEVI (Delhi Electric Vehicle Interconnector) initiative, the government is deploying smaller electric buses designed to navigate narrow lanes and underserved colonies that standard buses cannot access.Last year, chief minister Rekha Gupta flagged off 400 nine-metre electric buses, with more added since. These air-conditioned mini-buses, with around 23 seats and additional standing capacity, operate from depots such as Ghazipur, Vinod Nagar East and Nangloi. Their routes are designed to connect these colonies to nearby Metro stations and major Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) corridors.Gadepalli argues that such investments in buses are far more useful than capital-intensive grand projects like monorails and pod taxis. “ Mumbai could have expanded its bus fleet by 50% with the money it is investing in the pod taxi network,” she says.However, OP Agarwal, a former IAS officer and transport expert, who was also lead author of the National Urban Transport Policy (2006), takes a more measured view of the BKC project.He says the proposed pod taxi connection between Bandra and Kurla suburban stations through the BKC business district is “not a bad idea” for improving last-mile access within a dense commercial hub.“But, there is a clear institutional gap in transport planning in our cities that needs to be addressed urgently,” Agarwal says. “Unified transport authorities have already been set up in several cities. It is time they start taking responsibility and functioning effectively. They cannot keep waiting for certain powers.”He argues that these new agencies must begin with achievable reforms — parking policy, fare integration, seamless transfers at some select stations — instead of citing limited authority as an excuse.“The lack of power cannot be a permanent alibi to avoid doing some meaningful work on the basics. They should, at least, make a beginning. Once they make visible improvements on the ground, the necessary powers will follow,” he says.If that institutional shift happens, the last mile may finally become someone’s responsibility.