India, Nov. 23 -- Mumbai: Nearly one in three Mumbaiites-about 3.95 million people, or 31.8% of the city's population-live in areas with poor access to public transport, according to a recent study by the civil engineering department of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

The study, conducted by Gopal R Patil, professor at IIT-B; Dr Rakhi Manohar Mepprambath, senior scientist at A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore; and IIT-B research scholar Manish Yadav mapped how well residents can reach buses, metro stations and suburban trains across the city.

It found that 6.5 million people (52.2%) live in high transit-gap zones, where the demand for public transport far exceeds the services available. Another 1....