The air in India's metropolitan cities is so severely polluted that it can make a white sheet of paper look like carbon paper within eight hours. If this strikes you only as a cosmetic effect, consider another statistic: more than 2% people in the prime of their life (from 15 year olds to 44 year olds) die prematurely of breathing- or heart-related disorders in Delhi because of the increased pollution. The single-largest contributor to pollution is the urban transport.

'Cleaner air and better transport: making informed choices' emphasizes the need to make public transport attractive enough for those who currently use cars, motorcycles, and scooters and highlights the role of information technology to achieve that objective by providing quality information to users of the public transport. This little book presents facts objectively to help you make sense of what you read or hear about the topic through the mass media and to make informed choices and judgements.

If you have ever sought answers to any of the following or similar questions, this book is for you.

Which pollutant contributes most to air pollution?
How is air pollution actually measured?
Why is carbon monoxide injurious to health?
How can public transport be made more efficient?
Where can I find more information?

Air pollution is a problem that cannot be wished away. If the present trends continue, it can only worsen in the future---and motorized transport will contribute the most to it. If we wish that bumper-to-bumper traffic, air full of acrid smoke that literally moves us to tears, and hopelessly overcrowded buses are not to be our lot in the 21st century, the time to act is now. Mere insistence on the right to clean air, increasingly stringent regulations with little prospect of implementing them, or proclamations of dire consequences for future generations will not make the air in our cities any cleaner: informed judgement, action backed with adequate reflection, and a healthy mistrust of simplistic solutions and quick fixes will.

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