How much time does it take one to drive the 5 kilometer stretch from Delhi’s ITO to Connaught Place at the heart of the city? Ideally, this is a ride that should take less than five minutes, but if you are unlucky enough to enter this stretch at peak hours, it could take you more than 30-45 minutes. With the Delhi RTO currently registering an average of 1,600 vehicles a day, this is a problem that is not going away soon.
Congestion on roads are not Delhi’s problem alone and other cities are no different. According to data compiled by the respective transport departments, 1,752 vehicles are being added daily to Bengaluru’s roads and 700 a day in Pune. Although Mumbai sees another 700 new vehicles entering its motorways every day, much less than Delhi, it still has the dubious distinction of being India’s most car-congested city with 510 cars per km.
Traffic congestion and a lack of parking spaces are becoming one of the biggest problems cities facing city administrators the world over. Indian cities already feature among the most congested during peak traffic in Asia. According to a report by Boston Consultancy Group, traffic congestion during peak hours in four major cities on India — Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata — costs the economy Rs 1.47 lakh crore annually. On average, travellers in these cities spend 1.5 hours more on their daily commutes than counterparts in other Asian cities during peak traffic hours.
“The level of congestion is significantly higher in Indian cities than comparable cities around Asia, averaging 149 per cent. This is partly attributable to India’s large population and high population density, as well as an under-developed public transportation network (especially rail-based transport),” the report said.
“Mobility is one of the major challenges, especially in Bengaluru. There is no policy at present to restrict the number of vehicles per family. It is difficult for the road network to keep pace with the increase in vehicles added to city roads every year,” Bengaluru Transport Commissioner VP Ikkeri said. Another question is where citizens will park all these new vehicles.
This was the reason the smart city mission had put special emphasis on using intelligent traffic management systems and technology to streamline traffic, while building more parking areas. For instance, Bhubaneswar is already working on a Master System Integrator, which aims to integrate an array of services such as traffic, parking, transit and city WiFi into a single service at an investment worth `585 crore. Last year, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal had also proposed a congestion tax along the lines of Singapore. However, the levy failed to take off due to political considerations.