A large share of the world’s population, today, is living in urban areas and experts estimate that the proportion of people living in urban areas will increase in the coming years. According to United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas—a proportion that is expected to increase to 68 percent by 2050. Projections show that urbanization, the gradual shift in residence of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050, with close to 90 percent of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa, according to a new United Nations data set launched today.
As mobility is a basic requirement for the social and economic activities, the urban population is in dire need for reliable transportation systems. Private vehicle, being the most reliable means of transportation, ownership of private vehicles in cities is generally high. For instance, Kathmandu valley accounts for around 50 percent of the total registered motorized vehicles in Nepal. Due to growing population, which in turn leads to the increase of private vehicles on the road, traffic congestion and road accidents have become an unavoidable part of life in the cities.
Number of strategies to alleviate the problem of road congestion have been developed and implemented worldwide. Road space rationing, development of public transportation, vehicle quota system and congestion pricing are key strategies used across the world to manage traffic congestion. These strategies enforce and at the same time encourage people to shift from private vehicle to public transportation and motorized to non-motorized vehicle or even walking. These measures will subsequently help in reduction of vehicle on road and fuel consumption. Costa Rica and Honduras implemented rationing to reduce oil consumption. The objectives of managing road congestion are to improve mobility condition and traffic flow, and to reduce air and sound pollution, and to ultimately decrease the use of cars.
Road space rationing has been implemented in Mexico, India, Columbia, China, Brazil, Chile, Greece, and Bolivia among other countries. Rationing has been implemented to the private vehicles. During the 18th SAARC summit, a road rationing program was implemented in Kathmandu for 5 days from November 24, 2014 to November 28, 2014. Based on the odd-even number plates of the vehicles, they were allowed to run on the roads in Kathmandu. The regulation was applied for the public as well as private motorized vehicles. Road rationing has been in practice since then during big national events in Nepal. Reports from traffic police have shown that implementation of road rationing has been successful in reducing traffic congestion, road accidents, and air pollution. Although this strategy was applied as a temporary solution to ease traffic flow during the big events, discussions are being held at different levels if this strategy could be applied for a long period.
Odd-even number plate control is a simple mechanism to operate. According to License Plate Rationing Evaluation Report, three most enduring implementation of road space rationing are Mexico City, Mexico; Bogota, Columbia; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. The objective of this strategy was to reduce vehicle emission. In short-term, all of these cities have experienced positive results; however, the long term results were significantly different for Mexico City and Sao Paulo. Mostly it is experienced that the strategy of road space rationing is just a temporary solution to enhance effective traffic flow.
To reduce traffic congestion and enhance smooth traffic flow different countries have implemented different strategies. For instance, Sweden, England, Singapore, etc implemented congestion pricing strategy to manage traffic congestion whereas countries like Columbia, Mexico, China, Brazil etc implemented rationing strategies to manage road congestion. Currently, congestion pricing is regarded as one of the powerful tool to manage congestion compared to rationing. In congestion pricing, one pays and goes but in rationing one needs to wait for his turn to go.
Infrastructure improvement, public transportation development, encouragement to use non-motorized vehicles, road space rationing, and congestion pricing are the strategies applied to manage congestion. From the experiences, none of the single strategies has been successful in controlling congestion. Therefore, most of the countries have applied some combination of aforementioned strategies for managing congestion. For instance, Bogota has developed Bus Rapid System (BRT), in addition to using road rationing strategy for peak hours. In London, on the other hand, well developed public transportation is combined with congestion pricing to control congestion. Rationing and congestion pricing mechanisms are applied only to the private vehicles.
During road space rationing in Kathmandu, the regulation was applied for private and public vehicles and priority was given to the private vehicles over public. Such actions are against the traffic congestion management principle. Such incidents will provoke people to buy multiple cars. The state should always prioritize public vehicle over private. The aim should always be to discourage the use of private vehicle. Once people shift from private to public, traffic management task will be a lot easier.
Number plate rationing strategy will have adverse impact in Nepal. If this strategy is to be applied as a permanent solution, people will certainly buy multiple vehicles in Nepal. Nepal needs to adopt experience of Bogota. Let us first develop good public transportation and then think about the strategies like rationing or congestion pricing. There should be alternative means of mobility before applying such strategies. Mobility cannot be traded off with congestion management.
Road space rationing will generally lead to an inequity in society. It is favorable for the upper-class people because they can afford to buy two vehicles—one odd and another even—to bypass the rule. People who are used to private vehicle will by any means try to own at least two vehicles. In the long run, the number of vehicles will increase thereby shrinking the road space. That is again the case of road congestion. There is not a single experience in the world that shows road space rationing is the solution for traffic congestion management. Learning from the experiences of other countries, Nepal needs to develop automated traffic system, proper and reliable public transportation, widening of all busy roads, discourage the use of private vehicle immediately in the first phase. And in the second phase strategies like congestion pricing and rationing could be implemented. It is not the right time for Nepal to think about number plate rationing.
