Capacity building is “the process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organisations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast-changing world” (United Nations, n.d.). The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) capacity-building framework recognises capacity-building needs at three levels: the enabling environment, organisational and individual levels (UNDP 2008). It also emphasises the interdependency and mutual reliance among these three levels. Our study examines only the individual capacity needs of UP government officials.

India’s own Capacity Building Commission prepared the ‘Toolkit for Preparation of Annual Capacity Building Plan for Urban Local Bodies’, which emphasises adopting a demand-driven bottom-up approach, with local government officials at the centre of the process. Thus, in this study, we first identified the local (city) government actors responsible for planning, implementing and sustaining urban mobility solutions in the cities of UP. Further, we categorised these local government actors into groups based on city size and government agencies’ functions. We conducted a comprehensive TNA with the identified groups of government officials, and, on its basis, suggested an urban mobility capacity-building programme for UP.

2.1. Identifying target groups

UP has over 700 urban local bodies (ULBs) catering to populations and areas of varying size Our primary criterion to select a city for the study was whether it has a municipal corporation. This helped us ensure a certain level of technical capacity and planning/implementation of urban mobility interventions. There are 17 cities in UP with municipal corporations, and their population ranges from 300,000–3 million (3 lakh–30 lakh). Across these cities, we noted the implementation of various GoI and UP government schemes/programmes with urban mobility components, including AMRUT, Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India (FAME), PM-eBus Sewa, and PM Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement (PM E-Drive).

In each of the 17 cities, at least two interventions of the government schemes/programmes mentioned in Table 1 were being implemented. According to the Census 2011, seven of these cities—Lucknow, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Agra, Meerut, Varanasi, and Prayagraj—have a population of million-plus, while the remaining 10 are non-million-plus cities. The urban mobility planning needs and strategies of larger cities differ from those of smaller ones. Hence, we divided these cities into two groups: Group 1, comprising million-plus cities, and Group 2, for non-million-plus cities. Figure 2 shows the spatial distribution of the selected cities across the state. We will use Group 1 and Group 2 (G1 and G2) nomenclature across the report to refer to the cities.

2.2. Decoding Uttar Pradesh’s urban mobility governance

We identified and mapped all the government agencies that are involved in planning, implementing, managing, and enforcing urban mobility interventions at the city level. Figure 4 details Uttar Pradesh’s urban mobility governance ecosystem, with all the identified government agencies and their placement in the overall hierarchy at the state/regional/city levels. The governance structure presented in Figure 3 can vary for different states in India.

The institutional structure governing UP’s urban mobility planning and management is fragmented. Land-use and transport-planning-related functions are concentrated with the development authorities, with jurisdictions larger than municipal areas. There are 28 development authorities in UP, governed by the housing and urban planning department at the state level. They are responsible for making development and transport plans, as well as strategies for transit-oriented development at the city/regional level. The Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation Limited (UPMRCL) is also a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the housing and urban planning department. The cities with operational metro systems have their city-level metro SPVs.

The development of municipal infrastructure and the operation of city buses fall under the ambit of the urban development department at the state level. The directorate of urban transport (DUT) oversees bus operations in 14+ cities of Uttar Pradesh, which are individually run by city-level SPVs such as Lucknow City Transport Service Limited and Kanpur City Transport Service Limited. DUT also guides municipal corporations in preparing comprehensive electric mobility plans, standardising street infrastructure development, and developing charging infrastructure. There are 17 municipal corporations in UP governed by the Uttar Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act, 1959, undertaking tasks such as street development, town planning, bus-stop development, charging infrastructure development, regularising para transit, and facilitating land availability for bus depots and terminals. Under the GoI’s Smart Cities Mission, several smart-city SPVs in UP have developed integrated command-andcontrol centres that oversee and manage key traffic nodes. Moreover, urban mobility projects such as smart roads, footpath/cycle track development, bike-sharing schemes, multilevel parking, etc., were being built as part of the smart-city mission.

Each government agency manages a specific aspect of urban mobility, often resulting in intersecting responsibilities

With its regulatory role in the sector, the transport department deals with various matters like issuing driving licences, motor vehicle registration, disbursing EV subsidies, granting and renewing permits, collecting taxes/fees, and road safety regulations. It also takes charge of all other regulatory and enforcement functions assigned to it under the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988. Regional transport offices (RTOs) have been set up in each district by the transport department to carry out the aforementioned activities. The Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) is an SPV under the transport department that owns/contracts and manages the operations of state transport buses. Earlier, UPSRTC operated many city buses as well, but, gradually, the operations were shifted under the supervision of the urban development department.

The public works department (PWD), with its regional offices, is responsible for constructing, improving, strengthening, and maintaining roads and bridges across the cities of UP. Uttar Pradesh has a traffic directorate at the state level, which also recommends and guides traffic management and road safety measures. The traffic directorate is also responsible for collating road safety data, identifying accident-prone areas, and taking measures to reduce road accidents. The city-level traffic police offices of the cities concerned look after the day-to-day traffic management and enforcement.

Although the functions of these different government agencies are defined by notified acts/ laws, there is constant overlap or sharing in responsibilities, jurisdictions, and projects. For instance, municipal corporations, development authorities, and PWD undertake street planning and development exercises in a city but often employ distinct approaches and methodologies. While development authorities notify city master plans, municipal corporations have to implement various components of the master plan. City transport undertakings (CTUs) run city buses, but municipal corporations develop the bus-stop infrastructure. Thus, we have broadly classified the urban mobility functions into five themes—urban and transport planning, street infrastructure planning and development, city bus planning and operations, parking planning and management, and electric mobility planning. Table 2 shows the overlap of functions between different government agencies. We have structured our study to gather information across the full spectrum of these government agencies involved in UP’s urban mobility domain.

2.3. Training needs assessment data collection 

Roles and responsibilities are delineated across hierarchical levels within different government agencies. To comprehensively understand the hierarchy of government officials, we consulted senior officials in different government agencies. Based on this, we classified our survey target groups as managerial or technical staff. The classification is explained in Table 3 below.

We developed tailor-made survey questionnaires based on the governance structure, functional priorities, and the hierarchy of government officials. The questionnaires were relevant to each government agency, with the overall format remaining the same. The survey questionnaire is divided into four sections, as shown in Figure 4. The complete questionnaire is attached in Annexure 1.

Section I comprised the officials’ basic profiles: age, gender, qualification, etc. It also focused on information regarding the urban mobility officials’ past training experiences and their impact on daily work. Section II elaborated on the self-assessment of the officials’ knowledge and awareness regarding various national missions, national/state-level policies, schemes, plans, etc., relevant to their respective functions. Section III covered the assessment of the officials’ training needs. The training needs were divided into knowledge-based and skillbased thematic areas. Each knowledge-based theme was further divided into sub-themes derived from the functions and responsibilities of the different government agencies. Table 4 presents a comprehensive list of sub-themes, which varied in the questionnaires based on the government agency whose officials were surveyed. The themes and sub-themes were derived from the existing roles and duties of government agencies, along with the particular missions and projects they engage in (Tables 1 and 2). Senior officials from government agencies— occupying top managerial posts such as chief engineers, chief town planners, managing directors, and general managers—were consulted to validate the thematic areas we classified. To understand the institutional priority of these themes, we employed an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method. We have mentioned the institutional priority order in Annexure 2.

The skill-based thematic areas were kept the same across all departments. These themes included common attributes such as project planning skills (RFP preparation, project management, IEC, etc.), technical skills (GIS, AutoCAD, survey methods, etc.), and interpersonal skills (leadership, human resource, etc.). The officials’ training needs were measured on a Likert scale of four: no priority, low priority, high priority, and very high priority. A weighted score was calculated for each sub-theme and clubbed into percentile ranges. To simplify, the responses were converted to a four-pointer percentile (0-100) score. Section IV focuses on the format of training requirements, which guide the capacity-building programme proposal. This includes factors such as the number of days, training frequency, language, etc.

The surveys were conducted in person with the government officials. There are no urban transport or urban mobility departments in the city governance systems, but these roles are somewhat scattered among the internal departments of civil engineering, town planning, roads & bridges, etc. Thus, our teams would first meet the highest-level managerial staff in a government agency (for example, chief engineer, chief town planner, chief operations officer, etc.) and understand functions related to the urban mobility domain, and learn about the officials present in the agency to plan or implement them. We clubbed all the responses from different cities into Group 1 (million-plus cities) and Group 2 (non-million-plus cities). The data was further bifurcated for more detailed insights into responses from technical and managerial officials. Based on these findings, a training needs assessment matrix was prepared for all the surveyed government agencies. The assessment findings were then used to develop an urban mobility capacity-building proposal for Uttar Pradesh. 

A structured framework is required for the state of UP to regularly upskill urban mobility officials. We propose an on-duty capacity-building programme that should operate at regular intervals and be flexible in response to changes in the urban mobility sector, including vehicle technologies, planning paradigms, government policies, and urban growth patterns. Section 3 detailed the profiles of UP’s urban mobility officials, their awareness of government schemes/missions/ programmes, and their training needs. Based on this information, we suggest a comprehensive training programme and an institutional ecosystem to support it continuously.

4.1. Training curriculum

Training delivery is one of the most important aspects of ensuring skill improvement through a capacity-building programme. Thus, we also collected additional information from government officials regarding the delivery methods for a dedicated urban mobility capacity-building programme in Uttar Pradesh. More than 50 per cent of officials responded in favour of quarterly training sessions, with nearly 95 per cent preferring training sessions lasting between one and three days. To ensure relevance, we suggest a two-day quarterly training schedule, with its themes and modules consistently informed by frequent TNA exercises. The findings from the TNA matrix are translated into various levels of training for the officials, which can be used to develop training modules for each sub-theme. Using the TNA matrix and the findings of our survey, we suggest a three-level training structure:

Transforming urban mobility requires a continuous on-thejob training curriculum

Below, we demonstrate how the TNA matrix (Figure 20 and 21) can be used to develop a training curriculum. First, identify the government agencies interested in being trained in common sub-themes. Then, identify the training priorities of these government agencies’ managerial and technical staff. Finally, delineate the training items for the selected sub-themes. This inclusive training can be leveraged to improve coordination among different government agencies and streamline the delivery of urban mobility functions in cities. We recommend a template, as shown in Table 7, which outlines the levels of training on the topic–charging infrastructure network planning. Similarly, participating officials can be mapped from the TNA matrix shown in Figures 20 and 21 to develop other training modules.

Existing training modules and platforms can be leveraged depending on their content and formats. Potential partner institutions include CEPT University, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Management Development Institute (MDI), Centre for Good Governance (CGG), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), All India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG), Centre for Urban Studies at IIPA, the Human Settlements Management Institute (HSMI) of HUDCO, and the Institute of Urban Transport (IUT). The proposed ‘capacity-building cell’ (discussed in Section 4.2.) should collaborate with these established institutions that have the necessary expertise and infrastructure to deliver training across various thematic areas.

4.2. Setting up a state-level urban mobility capacity-building cell 

We propose setting up a permanent capacity-building cell/wing within the urban development department of Uttar Pradesh to continuously upskill urban mobility professionals. This capacitybuilding cell can be set up under RCUES. This is on account of its robust capacity-building infrastructure, experience in executing capacity-building initiatives for a variety of urban development programmes, and its ongoing technical support to numerous urban local bodies (ULBs) within the state. Furthermore, RCUES was established by MoHUA and has a ‘Utkrisht’ accreditation from the Capacity Building Commission of India, which solidify its credibility. The capacity-building cell must consist of two full-time faculty members with 10+ years of experience in urban mobility planning/management. In addition, two-three full-time staff members should be hired to undertake technical, administrative, and financial tasks. The capacity-building cell will be responsible for the following:

1. Conducting TNA regularly and identifying key training areas based on changes in government policies, industry technology, the state’s economic growth pattern, etc.

2. Creating comprehensive and interactive training modules in consultation with the GoI’s centre of excellence, state government officials, academia, etc.

3. Planning, coordinating, and conducting regular capacity-building sessions.

4. Monitoring and evaluating the performance of government officials using proper tools and mechanisms.

To oversee the impact of capacity building on the state’s urban mobility sector, a sanctioning committee must be placed above the capacity-building cell. The principal secretary of the urban development department should lead the sanctioning committee. The committee must also have members from other key departments, such as housing and urban planning, public works, transport, and traffic. The sanctioning committee must undertake the following tasks:

1. Review the annual plans of the urban mobility capacity-building cell/wing.

2. Allocate continuous budgets to the urban mobility capacity-building programme.

3. Manage the convergence of funding or ongoing capacity-building initiatives under different government agencies.

4. Monitor the long-term impacts and outcomes of the capacity-building programme.

4.3. Monitoring and evaluation framework

The capacity-building cell should conduct periodic assessments, preferably after the completion of quarterly training. They must also develop a dashboard to maintain a performance record of the government officials participating in the urban mobility capacitybuilding programme. The dashboard must be dynamic, with quarterly performance updates based on assignments/exercises evaluated for each individual. Access to the dashboard can be shared with the respective government offices to link performance monitoring to career progression.

Government officials need to be encouraged to actively engage in upskilling through various methods. This can be achieved by offering certifications or accreditations recognised by either the government or industry. Their contributions should be acknowledged, with accomplishments celebrated through awards, certificates, or public recognition. Additionally, fostering competition, as seen in the Swachh Bharat Mission, can be effective. Incentives could be linked to the practical application of newly acquired skills in their roles or to measurable enhancements in performance connected to the training. These strategies will help maintain motivation and engagement among government officials. In the long term, the capacity-building programme must improve urban mobility indicators in UP. Table 8 highlights some examples of long-term outcomes associated with urban mobility capacity building.

4.4. Financing of capacity-building activities 

A permanent effort to upskill urban mobility officials will require regular financing. Our survey captured responses from 337 government officials who specifically work on urban mobility in 17 cities of UP. Our estimates suggest that the annual training of around 500 urban mobility officials will cost around INR 30–50 million (INR 3-5 crore) in UP. These costs include lodging, boarding, reading material, guest faculty expenses, training venue charges, institutional charges, travel costs, etc. To compute the annual costs, we have followed the MoHUA’s standard capacitybuilding cost norms, which are used by government training institutes, including RCUES. We have also assumed that these training exercises will be conducted in RCUES, as their Lucknow campus already has the infrastructure to deliver regular training. However, in the long term, the state must be divided into city/metropolitan training clusters with respect to the geographical distribution and proximity of the cities. This will ensure increased/regular participation and convenience for the urban mobility officials.

Multiple sources must be tapped to fund capacity building for urban mobility officials. The proposed capacity-building cell within RCUES must manage or streamline different funding channels under the guidance of the sanctioning committee, which includes representation from all the key state-level actors. These funding channels can consist of (but need not be limited to):

1. UP’s dedicated urban transport fund (UTF): A certain share of the UTF can be earmarked annually for capacity-building activities.

2. State and national government agencies independently engage in different urban mobility capacity-building activities. The capacity-building cell must create a unified approach to coordinate and direct these scattered efforts.

3. Funds from different state departments of Uttar Pradesh, including the urban development department, housing & urban planning department, department of personnel and administration, public works department, and traffic directorate, can be channelised for the proposed capacity-building activities.

4. Funds from ongoing schemes/programmes under national ministries such as the MoHUA, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, etc. can be channelised through the proposed capacity building cell.

The cities of Uttar Pradesh will have to start preparing for the upcoming era of rapid urbanisation and its subsequent need for mobility demand. The state has already realised this, and is investing in metro systems, bus-capacity improvement, fleet electrification, and street improvement through various initiatives. However, it also needs to quickly develop an upskilling ecosystem for its government officials, which can support a sustainable urban mobility transition. Our study has highlighted the intent of UP officials to learn different techniques and tools, and contribute to solving urban mobility challenges. The study also outlines the key thematic areas requiring urgent attention regarding capacity building for various urban mobility functionaries. The immediate next step must be the implementation of these capacity-building initiatives. Their successful execution has the potential to catalyse substantial improvements, resulting in enhanced quality of life for the citizenry.The urban mobility sector’s impacts on climate change, air pollution, road safety, and other negative externalities are well documented. Improving urban mobility also provides access to economic opportunities and livelihoods. It is time to realise this sector’s potential overall to improve the quality of life of citizens, and foster economic growth. With much of the state’s urbanisation yet to happen, UP currently stands at a pivotal point in shaping its future mobility paradigm. The role of urban mobility officials is most critical to shaping this paradigm. UP can also set a precedent for other states to follow. We also suggest a framework below, which can act as a starting point for other Indian states to plan their efforts towards upskilling urban mobility officials.