[sustran] Cost of congestion

[vivek chattopadhyaya]

Dear All,

I wish everyone a happy new year.
Pls see the following editorial on congestion issue, you may find it of interest.

thanks,
Vivek


Economics of congestion
(December 31, 2006, Down To Earth)

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) says India produced over 10 million 
vehicles in 2006. The number of cars was more than one million. As the manufacture and sale 
of vehicles are important parameters of the national economy, this millionth-vehicle yardstick 
says the economy’s fundamentals are buoyant.

I have no quarrel with this. But I do find this economic assessment rather incomplete and 
simplistic. Because vehicles require resources to operate, maintain and even park. Where will 
these resources come from? Who pays? Who does not? These assessments are critical to 
learn the economics that really matters: what is the cost of this growth, and how should we 
pay for it? At the very least, five costs have to be added to the price of each vehicle. One, the 
cost of building a road. Two, the cost of maintaining roads, the cost of policing on the road, 
the cost of powering the millions of traffic lights. Three, the crippling cost of local air pollution 
and bad health which requires monitoring, control and regulation. Added to this, is evidence 
that vehicles are key contributors to pollution, which is feeding climate change and will result 
in even bigger costs. Four, the cost of congestion, which every motorist on a busy road 
imposes on fellow travellers—from delays that cost time, to increased fuel consumption that 
costs money.

Five, the cost of space for parking vehicles, at home and at work. We need to ask why 
economists— the ones who normally rant about markets, the need for full cost pricing and 
removal of subsidies—never account for these costs in their calculations of growth. After all, 
the cold logic of the market, repeatedly cited when it comes to the meagre support given to 
farmers, should apply here as well. Could it be that our economists are so vertically integrated 
to the market—with mind and matter—that these distortions fail to catch their attention?

Take roads. We know that cars on roads are like the proverbial cup that always fills up. Cities 
invest in roads, but fight the losing battle of the bulge: congestion. The US provides up to four 
times more road space per capita than most European cities, and up to eight times more road 
space per capita as compared to the crowded cities of Asia. When more roads fail to solve 
the problem, governments invest in flyovers and elevated highways. These roads occupy 
space—real estate—and are costly to build and maintain. It has been estimated that in 
Western cities dependent on automobiles, it could cost as much as US $260 per capita per 
year to operate these facilities.

But this investment is also not paying off as ever increasing cars fill the ever increasing 
space. This is why experts say building roads to fit cars is like trying to put out a fire with 
petrol. Britain’s orbital motorway, something akin to Delhi’s Ring Road that ‘bypasses’ the city, 
was built 20 years ago. Since then, it has been expanded at huge costs to 12 lanes. But 
bumper-to-bumper traffic on it has dubbed it the nation’s biggest car park.

Congestion costs the earth, in terms of lost hours spent in traffic; in terms of fuel and in terms 
of pollution. In the US, the congestion bill for 85 cities totalled to a staggering US $63 billion in 
2003. This calculated only the cost of hours lost—some 3.7 billion—and extra fuel consumed, 
not the loss of opportunity because of missed meetings and other such factors. In the UK, the 
industry has pegged the figure at US $30 billion. Our part of the world is similarly blessed: 
Bangkok estimates that it loses 6 per cent of its economic production due to traffic 
congestion. These costs do not even begin to account for pollution: emissions of 
hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide are linked with speed and frequent stop and start.

The logic of the market tells us that people overuse goods and services that come free. Why, 
then, should this dictum not be applied to roads? Why should fiscal policy not be designed to 
reflect the real cost of this public asset? Why not charge for it? The question of who should 
pay is simple: the user. But what is often not understood is the nature—colour and class—of 
the ‘real’ user of the public largess in our economies. While in the Western world, the car has 
replaced the bus or bicycle, in our world it has only marginalised its space. Therefore, even in 
a rich city like Delhi, cars and two wheelers carry less than 20 per cent of the city’s commuting 
passengers. The rest are transported by buses, bicycles or other means. But the operational 
fact is that these cars and two-wheelers occupy over 90 per cent of the city’s road space. 
Therefore, it is evident that the user of the public space and the beneficiary of public 
largess—the road, the flyover or the elevated highway—is the person in the car or the two-
wheeler.

Cars do not only cost on the road. They also cost when they are parked. Personal vehicles 
stay parked roughly 90 per cent of the time; the land they occupy costs real estate. Cars 
occupy more space for parking than what we need to work in our office: 23 sq metres to park 
a car, against 15 sq metres to park a desk. My colleagues have estimated that the one 
million-odd cars in Delhi would take up roughly 11 per cent of the city’s urban area. Green 
spaces in the city take up roughly the same. Ultimately, the issue is not even what it costs. 
The issue is why we are not computing the costs or estimating its losses.
—Sunita Narain



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SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable 
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End of Sustran-discuss Digest, Vol 40, Issue 21
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Vivek Chattopadhyaya 
Sr R.A.
Centre for Science and Environment
41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area
New Delhi: 110062 India
Tel: 29955124, 29956110, 29956394, ext: 222, Fax: 29955879
website: www.cseindia.org