A persistent red circle in an infrared map of Tokyo’s central district has made officials sit up and worry.

The circle is a ‘heat island’ caused by vehicular emissions. And it has led the Japanese government to start a campaign to popularise commuting by bus and cut down cars on road: by offering shopping coupons to those taking public buses.

The Delhi Transport Corporation has now taken a leaf out of the book, it seems. The DTC, in a bid to get more people on its buses, launched a discounted smartcard system for a its shuttle service in Dwarka on Tuesday.

Like buses in the Japanese capital, the DTC buses for Dwarka will also be sleek and low-floor.

Tokyo, meanwhile, is advocating a system where people do not have to change their lifestyle much and is trying, like DTC, to make public transport ‘cool’.

With an estimated 1,000 cars hitting the Capital’s roads every day, officials in Delhi agree that new, radical solutions are the need of the day to curb the growth of private vehicles.

And Tokyo, it seems, has hit upon such an idea to popularise public transport. Yuji Kikuta, an official from Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Bureau of Environment, said: “Since people may not give up cars altogether, we have decided to advocate a system in which a commuter takes his car to certain point and then takes a bus. The bus will run on circular routes and take the commuter back to his car.

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