Infrastructure is being built around urban mobility, national connectivity and international linkages for movement of people, goods and services. However, it needs to be designed to ensure a seamless transition or else efficiency and productivity is lost. Making passengers walk for 1.5 km to collect their luggage after disembarking from the aircraft is a severe inconvenience. Similarly, not providing for transport to pick and move their goods without delay from the port destroys cost advantage. Rail to port connectivity adds efficiency if it is seamless just as passengers can take an elevator below the airport to take a metro rail to the centre of the city.With 900 km of operational metro rail across our country and another 1,000 km of metro rail in the works, there is a need for creating a single agency for all transport for effective coordination, as prescribed in the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority. While passenger vehicle sales have had the best year ever with sales crossing all-time highs, and we are building roads with fervour, this cannot be a sustainable solution. The higher the percentage of the city which uses public transport the better the city defines its sustainability in mobility. Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) is floating a tender to develop a common ticketing mobile application for city commuters. The application will have options for multiple modes of transport, including bus, Chennai Metro Rail, suburban rail, and autorickshaw for ease of travel.Considering that large road packages are being subject to 'an understanding' between large contractors and the authorities, is the road quality and therefore safety, being compromised? As per the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act 2019, Road Safety Audit of all National Highways has been made mandatory through third party auditors and experts at all stages i.e. design, construction, operation and maintenance etc. A report ought to be tabled by the Ministry on the working of this audit mechanism.Construction World is launching Highway Construction Courses which will, in the beginning, be refresher courses of Junior level and Senior level engineers across five days and three days and then will extend to courses which will enable a deeper understanding. In case you think your organisation would like to send some of your engineers and officers for these, turn to page 12 or scan the QR code for registration.Last year, the length of national highways constructed across India was 10,331 km at the rate of 28.3 km per day. This year, the target was set at 13,800 km at the rate of 37.8 km per day. However, by the end of January 2024, only 7,658 km have been constructed at the rate of 28.4 km per day. To achieve the target of 13,800 km, the rate of construction has to rise to 102.4 km per day! This is next to impossible, considering that the best record achieved at the rate of 36.5 km per day was during 2020-21 when a total of 13,327 km were constructed during the year. What is alarming is that the pace of awards has slackened abysmally to less than half! For instance, up to January 2024, only 3,481 km have been awarded, while during the same time last year, 8,400 km had been awarded.The adverse impact of poor awards will be felt bitterly during the winter of 2024. We hope the government accelerates its actions before election dates are announced and hope again, that the government that assumes power hits the ground running. We need efficiency in motion over emotion.Follow me on twitter @PratapPadode