A better understanding of the causal factors behind urban congestion will improve the policy measures to improve urban mobility in India. Explain (200 Words)
Refer - Financial Express
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 4 years
KEY POINTS
· Indian cities are slow due to uncongested mobility and not due to mobility delays. They are slow at all times, even at night in the absence of traffic.
· This is due to the multipurpose nature of urban transport, where roads are multipurpose public goods, used by various classes of motorised and non-motorised vehicles.
· This challenges the conventional wisdom that traffic congestion is the main reason why some cities are slow and some are fast.
· The unique patterns are consistent with Indian roads being multipurpose public goods, serving a wide variety of uses, other than motorised transport that slow down travel.
· If this conjecture is correct, then technologies and policies for separating roadway uses appears especially promising, with appropriate consideration for the costs of restricting non-vehicle uses.
· Scaling up investments in travel infrastructure is the only way to improve uncongested mobility.
· There is a positive role for the design of a regular network grid and the presence of more primary roads, and future research and engineering studies.
