Abstract
Last mile connectivity in rural India is a major issue which grapples majority of the Indian population. Particularly, transport connectivity towards last mile (final link between public transports to residence) in rural India is not properly addressed, which leads to hindrance in smooth functioning of daily lives of individuals. This paper aims to put forward an approach towards finding a solution to this problem, using service design methodology, ethnographic research and community driven service solution model. For creating the solution framework, a village named “Sangurdi” in Pune district of Maharashtra, India is taken as an example to understand the issues of villagers and different stakeholders facing transportation issues. With multiple interactions and ideation sessions with different stakeholders, a framework to address the issue is proposed, named “Amhi Sarathi”, a community driven vehicle cooperative to cater specific needs of the villagers.
Keywords
Last-mile connectivity, service design, rural India, community-driven solutions.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2025.83
Citation
Ramdasi, V.,and Onkar, P.(2025) Improving last mile transport connectivity in rural India: A case study of Village Sangurdi, in Mahamuni, R., Onkar, P. (eds.), ServDes 2025: Empowering Diversity, Nurturing Lasting Impact, 6–10 October, Hyderabad, India. https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2025.83
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Improving last mile transport connectivity in rural India: A case study of Village Sangurdi
Last mile connectivity in rural India is a major issue which grapples majority of the Indian population. Particularly, transport connectivity towards last mile (final link between public transports to residence) in rural India is not properly addressed, which leads to hindrance in smooth functioning of daily lives of individuals. This paper aims to put forward an approach towards finding a solution to this problem, using service design methodology, ethnographic research and community driven service solution model. For creating the solution framework, a village named “Sangurdi” in Pune district of Maharashtra, India is taken as an example to understand the issues of villagers and different stakeholders facing transportation issues. With multiple interactions and ideation sessions with different stakeholders, a framework to address the issue is proposed, named “Amhi Sarathi”, a community driven vehicle cooperative to cater specific needs of the villagers.