Iasscore:: Pollution and Congestion issues in Urban Transport: Case of Delhi

Pollution and congestion issues in Urban Transport: Case of Delhi

  

India is urbanizing. Its urban population is growing at an average rate of around 3% per year. Assuming decadal increase of around 32%, India’s urban population is expected to increase from 377 million in 2011 to 500 million in 2021 however, there is lower pace of infrastructure growth such as roads, transportation and poor planning of urbanization with respect to roads, public transport, residential and industrial area.

This mismatch in urbanization & infrastructure development along with poor urban planning has created several challenges which are:

Vehicular congestion and road safety issues: India accounts for 1% vehicles globally but 10% road accidents thus; it is plagued by careless driving and congestion issues. Factors involved in it are: 

• Growth in number of vehicles, in the six major metropolises of India which has outpaced population growth. 

• Limitation to road expansion; Resource (land & investment) constraints have come in the way of adequate investments in increasing road capacity and even in undertaking timely repair. Inefficient systems of construction coupled with poor maintenance have resulted in poor road infrastructure.

• Poor Traffic Management.

• Absence of Lane Segregation: Mixed traffic (speed differences) hard to handle.

• Road infrastructure is poor: narrow roads, lack of medians, pedestrian crossings, and few traffic signals.  

• Poor enforcement of traffic rules. 

• Corruption in issuing licenses and permits. 

• Inadequate number of trained traffic police.

Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and non-motorized vehicle occupants are often the most vulnerable in Indian cities.

Externalities: adding unwanted by products (local & global pollution): 

Factors involved in it are: 

• Enforcement of Pollution check norms is poor.

• Pollution certificates are issued without actual testing of vehicle.

• Poor condition of road also contributed to pollution of the cities because of the slower mobility of vehicles.

• In many cities, there is lack of public transport which leads to high use of many small and private vehicles.

• No policy to phase-out older vehicles. 

Strategies to mitigate the challenges of urban transport:

• Ramp metering. Controlling the access to a congested highway by letting automobiles in one at a time instead of in groups. The outcome is a lower disruption on highway traffic flows.

• Traffic signal synchronization. Tuning the traffic signals to the time and direction of traffic flows. This is particularly effective if the signals can be adjusted on an hourly basis to reflect changes in commuting patterns.

• Incident management. Making sure that vehicles involved in accidents or mechanical failures are removed as quickly as possible from the road. Since accident on average account between 20 and 30% of all the causes of congestion, this strategy is particularly important.

• Car ownership restrictions. Several cities and countries (e.g. Singapore) have quotas in the number of license plates that can be issued or require high licensing fees. To purchase a vehicle an individual thus must first secure through an auction a license.

• Carpooling. Concerns two issues. The first and most common is an individual providing ridership to people (often co-workers) having a similar origin, destination and commuting time. Two or more vehicle trips can thus be combined into one. The second involves a pool of vehicles (mostly cars, but also bicycles) that can be leased for short durations when mobility is required. Adequate measures must be taken so that supply and demand are effectively matched.

• HOV lanes. High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes insure that vehicles with 2 or more passengers (buses, taxis, vans, carpool, etc.) have exclusive access to a less congested lane, particularly during peak hours.

• Congestion pricing. A variety of measures aimed at imposing charges on specific segments or regions of the transport system, mainly as a toll. The charges can also change during the day to reflect congestion levels so that drivers are incited to consider other time periods or other modes.

• Parking management. Removing parking or free parking spaces can be an effective dissuasion tool since it reduces cruising and enables those willing to pay to access an area (e.g. for a short shopping stop).

• Public transit. Offering alternatives to driving that can significantly improve efficiency, notably if it circulates on its own infrastructure (subway, light rail, buses on reserved lanes, etc.) and is well integrated within a city’s development plans. However, public transit has its own set of issues.

• Non-motorized transportation. Since the great majority of urban trips are over short distances, non-motorized modes, particularly walking and cycling, have an important role to play in supporting urban mobility. The provision of adequate infrastructure, such as sidewalks, is often a low priority as non-motorized transportation is often perceived as not modern in spite of the important role it needs to assume in urban areas.

• Carbon tax for commercial vehicles.

• Promotion of CNG & electric vehicles.

With the pace of growing urbanization, the cost effective, timely and better facilitated transport on electric based is the need for the development of green cities. This can be done through the better planning and implementation of the schemes like AMRUT, smart cities.

Delhi’s Odd Even Formula: A Case Study

Delhi government’s much talked odd-even car policy’s trial period of 15 days completed and it’s time to review the impact of it.

What is the odd-even scheme?

• On 3 December, the Delhi High Court - after observing that the air pollution levels in the national capital had reached “alarming” proportions and it was akin to “living in a gas chamber” — had directed the Centre and city government to present comprehensive action plans to combat it.

• A day later, the Delhi government announced that it will restrict the amount of vehicles on the road by allowing cars with odd and even number plates to run on roads only on respective odd and even dates.

• It was also announced that all private vehicles, even having registration numbers issued by neighbouring states, will have to follow the odd-even number formula. Emergency services and public transport will not be under the ambit of the restriction.

Other important features of the scheme included the following:

• The rule was to be applicable only between 8 am and 8 pm every day.

• Women drivers, CNG-certified vehicles, VIPs, two-wheelers, ambulances, defence vehicles and embassy vehicles were exempted from the rule.

• Sundays were exempted from the rule.

• Delhi Metro Rail Corporation was asked to increase its frequency and extend its timing.

• 200 check-points in the city were to be created to check pollution levels.

Concerns over the Policy:

There are two major concerns — one, exemption given to two-wheelers and second, to women. Two-wheelers contribute to more than 30% of the total pollution caused by the vehicles. It should have also been covered under the odd-even formula. And, should there be class differentiation? Majority of women use public transport in Delhi. Government shouldn’t have given exemption to women and should have treated them at par.

Is It a Success?

• The number of cars will be halved on the road, this will free up a lot of space for the city’s public transport to become more efficient. Studies show that buses don’t even get to complete the scheduled trips. So when you’re freeing up space, all modes of public transport will function better - be it autos, taxis or buses. The overall system efficiency to carry more people will improve dramatically. Analyzing real-time vehicle speed data from Uber, Delhi revealed that during the odd-even programme, average speeds went up by a statistically significant 5.4 per cent (2.8 per cent standard deviation from normal). This is an especially significant change given that radio taxi drivers are meant to stay within speed limits.

• While the odd-even policy reduced pollution during its first two weeks in effect, there are reasons to wonder about its ability to reduce pollution over the longer run. A natural concern is that the odd-even policy could easily be gamed or otherwise undermined. Further, Mexico City’s experience with the implementation of a similar policy suggests, it could even make pollution worse by encouraging households to purchase second cars that are old and very polluting.

• A more durable effect on pollution might come from a congestion-pricing programme, in which drivers are charged for using the roads at certain places and times. This approach, which has been successful in places like London and Singapore, allows cities to effectively reduce car use at periods of peak congestion and pollution. The Delhi government should pilot the use of congestion charging, and invest any income from the charge in high-quality, high-capacity public transport with zero local emissions — which would again help to reduce demand for driving, congestion, and pollution.  

• Moreover it is not just vehicular pollution which is responsible for overall pollution in Delhi, as according to the IIT Kanpur study, only 20% of Pollution in Delhi is due to Vehicles. Road dust is the most important source of pollution in Delhi. Other important sources include industries, use of Tandoor in Restaurant etc., Thus even if odd-even rule is success it cannot have major impact on reducing pollution in Delhi until and unless, other sources of pollution are tackled.