Brakes on pollution

The jury is out on the efficacy of the odd and even number plate scheme in Delhi. When it was introduced at the beginning of this year, pollution levels didn’t decline in the city which the World Health Organization (WHO) lists as the most polluted in the world for two consecutive years. This was to be expected, because the accumulation of pollutants in the atmosphere can’t decrease with a fortnightly experiment like this. However, it was universally acknowledged that mobility improved visibly with some half of the 2.8 million cars off the roads during the day.

It took some courage on the part of Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP government to take the bull by the horns. One should never underestimate the power of the automobile lobby, which believes that it is their god-given right to drive — and park — although it is a privilege, for which it ought to pay. Although only 15 per cent of Delhiwallahs drive cars, they occupy 90 per cent of the road space.

Actually, Mumbai is in many ways more suitable for the alternate number system because the city, a peninsula hemmed in on either side by the sea, still has a north-south commuting axis. People travel south to work every morning and return to the northern suburbs in the evening. So it will be relatively easier to police the movement of cars on the arterial roads, including the Western and Eastern Express Highways and Eastern Freeway.

That something needs to be done both to reduce pollution and increase mobility in Mumbai is obvious. If the city has been spared the ignominy of the nation’s capital due to being located on the sea, that advantage may shortly vanish if the municipal corporation builds a 36-km west coast road. To add insult to injury, it is waiving tolls on this road, which will connect with the Bandra-Worli Sea Link at either end, so motorists will have a free run of the city’s most prized natural asset — its vista of the ocean — without paying a paisa.

The authorities may console themselves that Mumbai doesn’t figure among the WHO’s 13 worst polluted cities in the world which are in this country, out of a list of 20. However, as IIT-Bombay researchers have shown, there are heat islands where temperatures can differ by as much as 13 degrees centigrade due to excessive high-rise construction. Coastal cities like Hong Kong face this phenomenon.

The number plate experiment is not a flash in the pan but has impressive precedents. Closest home, Beijing launched its scheme just before the 2008 Olympics and saw pollution levels drop by a fifth. It imposes it whenever days are very polluted and issues only 20,000 new number plates a month. Last August, it forced 5 million cars to ply on alternate days for a fortnight, ensuring clear skies.

Paris has been resorting to this measure when pollution crosses limits and permits free use of the Metro and buses those days. It has also launched the highly successful Velib public bicycle hire system, which has stations dotted all over the city. In its very first year in 2007, it notched up 20 million trips.

Mexico started using number plates in 1989. Although it lowered the toxic carbon monoxide levels by 11 per cent, people started buying a second car, which negated the gains. Bogota, which is famous for its Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), tried to tighten the system but motorists drove off peak hours to circumvent it. 

In Indian cities, the proportion of people who can buy a new or second-hand car with a different number will be too small to make a difference. Thus nothing prevents Mumbai from having a go at this system, along with other traffic restraint measures.

In some ways, “congestion pricing” is easier to implement. Singapore was the first to introduce it as far back as in 1975. Cars entering the city centre were first manually and from 1998 electronically charged. This has decongested the centre and two out of every three commuters use public transport today.

London followed suit in 2003, with a charge of £5 originally, now raised to £11.50. The electronics have been developed, ironically enough, by an Indian company, Mastek. It has improved mobility in the city. A former Labour Mayor suggested that the charges should be variable, depending on the carbon dioxide emissions of the vehicle, but this wasn’t accepted. Significantly, the revenue from these charges goes into improving public transport, mainly the bus network.

If not the partial success in Delhi, other cities in the world have demonstrated the importance of restricting the entry of cars into the central business districts either on certain days or permanently. Mumbai is eminently suited to such schemes not only because of its geography but also because of its highly efficient local trains, carrying more than 7 million people a day, which Delhi lacks. 

The much-vaunted BEST bus service carries some 3 million a day, but its usage is dropping due to the terrible congestion on the roads. Even its air-conditioned buses — wrongly described as a BRTS — are going empty for this reason. Singly, the introduction of reserved bus lanes will do more to transport people, as distinct from vehicles, than any other measure.

After many false starts, Mumbai is experimenting with its first BRTS in the Bandra-Kurla Complex, the emerging central business district. It isn’t the best choice, because its traffic moves smoothly. The real challenge will be to introduce it in busy arteries like the Expressways and SV Road.

The municipal corporation is proposing a BRTS along the coast road, presumably to deflect the criticism that the Rs15,000-crore project is for private transport, rather than public. Nowhere in the world is a BRTS introduced on a new highway: its raison d’etre is to carry passengers smoothly along existing crowded arteries, where travellers want to ply.

The AAP government is unwisely dismantling the short-lived Delhi BRTS, which was a failure, partly because it was too short a route, not a wider network, as Janmarg has proved so successfully  in Ahmedabad. A BRTS costs a fraction of a Metro or highway and can approximate the carrying capacity of the former if planned properly.

Other measures to restrain traffic which Mumbai ought to be considering are higher parking fees, which increase telescopically and reflect some of the world’s highest real estate values. There should also be charges for parking at night. Cars are the obstacle, not the solution, for better transit.

The author is chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI)