Introduction
India’s cities are at a critical juncture in their mobility transition. Rapid urbanisation and rising travel demand are placing unprecedented pressure on existing transport systems, which remain fragmented, unevenly governed, and insufficiently integrated. By the mid-2030s, India’s urban population is projected to exceed 600 million, and daily mobility choices will shape not only economic productivity and environmental outcomes but also access to livelihoods, leisure, education, and essential services, including healthcare.[1],[2] A fragmented transportation system limits low-income users’ access to jobs, education, and services, and consequently, deepening existing inequalities.
Despite notable investments in metro rail, highways, and digital platforms, urban mobility outcomes continue to be characterised by worsening externalities, including congestion, high travel-time costs, emissions, and exclusion. The outcomes are worse for users dependent on informal and peripheral transport systems, including paratransit modes.[3],[4]
At a time when the broader Indian economy is rapidly adopting digital public infrastructure (DPI), open platforms, and data-enabled service delivery across diverse sectors, including finance, commerce, and governance, their use in public transport remains limited. Urban transport systems, including many fast-expanding metro rail systems, continue to rely on conventional service-delivery models, often ignoring the fundamental principles of accessibility, inclusivity, safety, and affordability.[5] At the same time, informal paratransit modes, which carry more than 25 percent of daily trips and provide critical first- and last-mile connectivity, remain largely invisible within formal planning, regulatory, and data ecosystems.[6],[7] Thus, despite the numerous benefits of harnessing big data, open data, and interoperable digital networks in providing seamless connectivity—as reflected in several successful, well-integrated, and user-oriented public transport models globally—urban transport in India remains fragmented across operational silos.[8],[9]
Big and open data, combined with open network architectures, are emerging as strategic enablers of next-generation urban mobility.[10] Rather than relying on closed, proprietary platforms or siloed institutional systems, open networks can create shared digital and standardised access rails that enable multiple public and private actors to offer coordinated services at scale, leveraging interoperability through seamless data sharing and integrated planning.[11] When designed with appropriate governance safeguards, such systems can enable seamless multimodal journeys, improve service reliability, integrate informal mobility, and enhance both passenger and urban freight movement, thereby strengthening economic efficiency, social inclusion, and climate resilience.[12],[13] Figure 1 presents the overall benefits of big data, open data, and interoperability in urban transportation.
Figure 1: Benefits of Big Data, Open Data, and Interoperability in Urban Transportation
Source: United Nations Economic Council for Europe[14]
Against this backdrop, the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) convened the second edition of its flagship multistakeholder dialogue on urban transport reform, the Urban Mobility Conclave 2025. The Conclave was co-hosted with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) in partnership with Porter and brought together policymakers, city governments, regulators, technologists, transport operators, researchers, and civil society.[a]
Building on the inaugural Urban Mobility Conclave held in 2024, which resulted in the ORF report, Pathways to Integrated Multimodal Transport Systems in Indian Cities,[15] the 2025 edition shifted the analytical lens from integration as an objective to data and digital openness as the means of achieving it. The Conclave was conducted under the Chatham House Rule to encourage candid exchanges while generating actionable policy insights.
The deliberations underscored that technology alone cannot solve India’s urban mobility challenges. Harnessing the gains from technology and data-driven solutions requires coordinated reforms across institutions, markets, and governance frameworks. This report synthesises the insights from the Urban Mobility Conclave 2025. Drawing on evidence from practice and policy deliberations, it examines how open networks and big data can support inclusive access, improve system efficiency, enable passenger-freight integration, and strengthen governance to enhance the urban mobility experience. The objective is to document discussions and translate them into a coherent framework of policy-relevant pathways that can inform decision-making across India’s cities and states.
This report articulates the outcomes of the discussions through a graduated set of recommendations, structured across three levels of intervention. The first comprises immediate and procedural measures—or “stroke-of-the-pen” actions, that can be undertaken through executive decisions, standards adoption, and inter-agency coordination to enable data sharing and interoperability. The second consists of medium-term reforms that require policy revisions, regulatory alignment, and capacity building at the city and state levels to operationalise open-data ecosystems and integrate informal mobility. The third are the long-term structural interventions that call for legislative clarity, institutional restructuring, and sustained public investment to embed open, data-enabled mobility as a core component of India’s urban development strategy.
Read the report here.
Nandan Dawda is Fellow, Urban Studies Programme, ORF.
Dhaval Desai is Vice President, ORF.
All views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors, and do not represent the Observer Research Foundation, either in its entirety or its officials and personnel.
Endnotes
[a] ONDC is a non-profit organisation that works to enhance population-scale penetration of digital commerce across India through an open protocol based on open-source specifications. Porter, an app-based aggregator, provides on-demand intracity delivery of goods via multiple modes, including two-wheelers, tempos, and mini-trucks, across more than 20 Indian cities.
[1] Auguste Tano Kouamé, Gearing up for India’s Rapid Urban Transformation, World Bank Group, 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2024/01/30/gearing-up-for-india-s-rapid-urban-transformation.
[2] Saakshi Joshi, Ajay Bailey, and Anindita Datta, “On the Move? Exploring Constraints to Accessing Urban Mobility Infrastructures,” Transport Policy 102 (2021): 61–74, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.11.005.
[3] Sunita Narain, Anumita Roychowdhury, Shubham Srivastava, and Sayan Roy, “How India Moves: Our Analysis Of 40 Cities Reveals A Brutally Simple Answer — It Does Not,” Down To Earth, July 9, 2025, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/air/how-india-moves-our-analysis-of-40-cities-reveals-a-brutally-simple-answer-it-does-not#:~:text=In%20the%20motorised%20transport%20segment,to%20513%20cars%20a%20day.
[4] NITI Aayog, Transforming Mobility in India, New Delhi, NITI Aayog, 2018,
https://e-amrit.niti.gov.in/assets/admin/dist/img/new-fronend-img/report-pdf/BCG.pdf.
[5] Nandan Dawda, “Towards a Comprehensive Framework for Public Transport System Planning in India,” ORF Occasional Paper No. 455, November 2024, Observer Research Foundation, https://www.orfonline.org/research/towards-a-comprehensive-framework-for-public-transport-system-planning-in-india.
[6] Nandan Dawda, “Integrating Paratransit to Address India’s Urban Transport Concerns,” Observer Research Foundation, March 28, 2024, https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/integrating-paratransit-to-address-indias-urban-transport-concerns.
[7] Aishwarya Jaiswal, M. Manoj, and Geetam Tiwari, “Exploring India’s Intermediate Public Transport: A Comprehensive Overview,” Transportation in Developing Economies 10, 14 (2024), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40890-024-00202-4.
[8] Andrea Chiappetta, “The Role of Big Data and IoT in Urban Transports” (presentation, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, September 15, 2015), https://unece.org/DAM/trans/doc/2015/wp5/wp5_28th_session_M_Andrea_Chiappetta.pdf.
[9] Nandan Dawda, “The Case for a Dedicated Urban Transport Service Cadre in India,” Observer Research Foundation, December 23, 2025, https://www.orfonline.org/english/expert-speak/the-case-for-a-dedicated-urban-transport-service-cadre-in-india.
[10] Ramanath Jha, “Enhancing Urban Mobility with Open Data and Open Networks,” Observer Research Foundation, October 13, 2025, https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/enhancing-urban-mobility-with-open-data-and-open-networks.
[11] World Economic Forum, Guidelines for City Mobility: Steering towards Collaboration, Geneva, World Economic Forum, 2020, https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Guidelines_for_City_Mobility_2020.pdf.
[12] International Transport Forum (ITF), “Data-Informed Mobility Governance: Summary and Conclusions,” ITF Roundtable Reports, No. 200, Paris, OECD Publishing, 2024, https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/data-informed-mobility-governance.pdf.
[13] Silvia Krúpová and Gabriel Koman, “The Role of IoT and Big Data in Smart City Transport Management: Lessons Learned from Case Studies in Slovakia and the EU,” Transportation Research Procedia, 93 (2026), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2025.12.027.
[14] Andrea Chiappetta, “The Role of Big Data and IoT in Urban Transports” (presentation, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, September 15, 2015), https://unece.org/DAM/trans/doc/2015/wp5/wp5_28th_session_M_Andrea_Chiappetta.pdf.
[15] Nandan Dawda and Dhaval Desai, Pathways to Integrated Multimodal Transport Systems in Indian Cities, May 2025, Observer Research Foundation, https://www.orfonline.org/public/uploads/posts/pdf/20250520232804.pdf.
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