[sustran] Re: Delhi plans congestion charge to ease gridlock | The Guardian

[ravi gadepalli]

While the point that private modes should pay the appropriate price of the resources used is well appreciated, congestion pricing may not be the way forward in India.

There are two reasons why congestion pricing can be impractical:
1) Most of the Indian cities have multiple business districts and informal markets. Therefore if congestion pricing is introduced in one area, the activity shifts to the other commercial areas and the attractiveness of the previously busy area goes down. 

2) The road networks in most of the cities are not hierarchically developed. Its common in many places to find an access road connected to an arterial road and so on. This means that if congestion pricing is included on some major roads leading to a cordoned area, people might find interior roads in the same area and find alternatives to get away from congestion pricing. 

I think the logical steps towards proper pricing of private modes is to improve our parking policies first and then move towards congestion pricing.

Regards,
Ravi Gadepalli,
iTrans Pvt. Ltd., TBIU,
IIT Delhi, New Delhi.
www.itrans.co.in




________________________________
 From: Cornie Huizenga <cornie.huizenga at slocatpartnership.org>
To: Sarath Guttikunda <sguttikunda at gmail.com> 
Cc: Clean Air Initiative -- Asia <cai-asia at lists.worldbank.org>; Global 'South' Sustainable Transport <sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org> 
Sent: Friday, 9 December 2011 10:39 AM
Subject: [sustran] Re: Delhi plans congestion charge to ease gridlock | The Guardian
 
Dear All,

It is interesting to read this. I just am back from the annual UMI meeting
on urban transport in Delhi. As far as I know none of the keynote Indian
speeches and presentations made reference to this.

I think that the article is significant in the sense that it points at a
growing awareness in Asian cities that it will be hard, if not impossible,
to revert the current pattern of growing un-sustainability of transport
systems, associated with rapidly growing vehicle fleets merely by investing
in public transport and promoting NMT.

Increasingly, cities seem to be willing to put in place demand management
measures to restrain the growth in number of vehicles and their use.
Evidence of this is for example the decision of Beijng and other cities in
China to follow the example of Singapore and Shanghai who for more than 10
years have had a vehicle quota system.  The economic success of these two
cities clearly demonstrates that restraining the number of vehicles does
not undermine economic growth.

A quota system can be implemented more easily and it is cheaper to
administer. If it is operated on the basis of an auction system it can also
generate substantial funding which should be a major contribution towards
improving public transport and NMT, except in the case of metro's which are
more expensive. In Shanghai, about 100,000 car licenses are auctioned each
year resulting in about $ 600 million in income.

The basic underlying premise is of course that road space is not a free
commodity and that access to its use by cars can be regulated in the same
manner as other parts of the city such as land for construction where
public lands are sold/leased or taxed for private development and the
proceeds are used for developing schools, hospitals etc.

Cornie

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 12:40 PM, Sarath Guttikunda <sguttikunda at gmail.com>wrote:

> Article quotes, "This will help reduce congestion … [and] encourage people
> to use public transport".
>
> How much of this is possible with the limited public transport in place?
> Compare with the public transport system in Singapore and London, Delhi is
> not close to the required capacity to warrant a shift from cars to bus or
> metro, by introducing a congestion fees. Toll roads and fuel taxes aside,
> congestion fees system requires an enormous scale-up in the current public
> transport system to make it work and see some tangible results in reducing
> congestion and related air pollution.
>
> ***********************************
>
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/08/delhi-congestion-charge-ease-gridlock?newsfeed=true
>
> *Delhi Plans Congestion Charge to Ease Gridlock*
>
> No one could fault the plan for lack of ambition: to tame the choked
> streets of India <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/india>'s notoriously
> chaotic capital by imposing a congestion charge modelled on that in London,
> Singapore and a handful of other cities.
>
> The Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the authority charged with providing
> civic services to the city, hopes to introduce a system to levy a 150-rupee
> (£2) fee on cars, motorbikes and even rickshaws entering central areas
> during the day.
>
> "This will help reduce congestion … [and] encourage people to use public
> transport," the head of the authority, KS Mehra, told local press. Lorries
> will be made to pay a higher fee.
>
> A congestion charge has existed in Singapore since the 1970s and various
> systems have been successfully introduced in London, Rome, Milan and
> several Scandinavian cities in recent years.
>
> Authorities in Beijing recently said they were considering congestion
> charging, and other Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Nangjing are
> reported to be interested. But no city of the size and complexity of Delhi
> has attempted to introduce such a scheme.
>
> Few doubt the necessity of radical measures in India's capital.
> Construction of a metro system and measures to boost the use of buses has
> barely slowed the increase in traffic in recent years. A decade of rapid
> economic growth and a broad distaste for public transport among the
> expanding middle class means there are now 6.8m vehicles on Delhi's roads,
> at least twice as many as five years ago.
>
> Gridlock is common and, during winter, heavy smog leads to accidents,
> respiratory diseases and mass flight cancellations.
>
> Other Indian cities such as Mumbai, the country's commercial capital, are
> considering similar measures. The Delhi scheme would first be implemented
> in areas around the historical old centre.
>
> But experts are sceptical. "If you look at what is already in place to
> reduce congestion, such as toll gates around Delhi, they make the problem
> worse, not better," said Rumi Aijaz, of the city's Centre for Policy
> Research thinktank. "Even if the proposal is accepted politically, the
> necessary infrastructure simply isn't there."
>
> The tolls on key roads linking Delhi with satellite cities cause huge
> traffic jams. Occasionally they are the focus of protests that can turn
> violent. Aijaz said a broader strategy to tackle traffic in the city was
> necessary. "There has to be a range of measures to manage the issue.
> Nothing done in isolation will work," he said.
>
> Experts point out that one serious problem is a lack of proper licensing or
> law enforcement in Delhi. Driving permits can be bought illegally and laws
> that should ensure safe driving and a smoother traffic flow are routinely
> ignored.
>
> Fines for traffic violations can usually be avoided by paying a small bribe
> to police officers. There are few cameras, although a Facebook page asking
> irate commuters to post their own photographs of offenders has met with a
> massive response.
>
> Senior police officers said charging would be a positive step – if
> technology to avoid queuing was introduced. But even if the practical
> obstacles can be overcome, the support of the infamously fractious
> "delhiwalla" – inhabitants of the city – will be hard to win.
>
> Some shopkeepers welcomed the move, but their customers were less
> enthusiastic. "People are already reeling under taxes … we don't need any
> more," Mamta Choudhary, a teacher who regularly shops in one of the areas
> designated for the new scheme, told the Times of India newspaper.
>
> Ram Thakur, a 45-year-old manager who spends up to two hours a day in
> traffic driving from the satellite city of Faridabad to his office, said no
> amount of charging would make him give up the small car that he bought a
> year ago. "I started on a bicycle and I've taken buses for 20 years. Now I
> am a car owner and life is very much nicer. I am not giving it up to go
> back on buses or bikes," he told the Guardian.
>
> Dr Robin Hickman, an expert in urban transport at London University, said
> that implementing a congestion charge in Delhi would be "extremely
> difficult. "It would probably be a better option to increase tax on fuel in
> the city and invest the funds generated in public transport," Hickman, who
> has worked in Delhi, said.
>
> --
> *Dr. Sarath Guttikunda*
> Founder and Analyst, UrbanEmissions.Info (New Delhi, India)
> Affiliate Associate Research Professor, Desert Research Institute (Reno,
> USA)
> *Tel +91-9891315946  |  http://www.urbanemissions.info*
> *http://www.dri.edu/sarath-guttikunda*
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>
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>



-- 
Cornie Huizenga
Joint Convener
Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport
Mobile: +86 13901949332
cornie.huizenga at slocatpartnership.org
www.slocat.net
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