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Newsstand
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Breaking the gridlock
Can Mumbai learn from the London Congestion Charging project?
by Ashank Desai
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Roads are the lifeline of a city. When traffic chokes this lifeline, the city gasps for breath. Many Indian cities, particularly Mumbai, are gasping today because of a congestion crisis. The hectic construction of flyovers has not eased Mumbai’s traffic woes because the number of vehicles has consistently increased. (More than one lakh cars are added to Mumbai’s roads every year.)
The average vehicular speed in Mumbai has fallen from 38 kmph in 1962 to 15 kmph today. According to figures available with the Mumbai Traffic police, there are more than 11 lakh vehicles plying on 1,900 km of roads in the city. The vehicular density is 591 per km of road.
If this is the case now, it is not hard to imagine what it would be in a decade as the northern and eastern suburbs continue to grow. So what can Mumbai city planners do? Can they take a leaf out of the books of some other cities that have overcome such problems? Prince Charles during his visit to India asked me: "You have worked on delivering parts of the London Congestion Charging [LCC] project, what about Mumbai?"
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Choked city: Traffic jam in the metropolis
London had the worst traffic congestion in Europe. Drivers spent 50 per cent of their time in queues, and it is estimated that the city lost 2-4 million pounds every week in terms of lost time caused by congestion. To solve the problem, London chose an innovative approach: LCC. The initiative by Transport for London Street Management on behalf of London Mayor Ken Livingstone, though quite simple, was extremely complex in its execution.
By the time it was completed in 2003, London had implemented one of the largest traffic management projects in the world. The basic idea was to charge drivers a daily fee for entering the Central London zone to ensure that those using the congested road space made a financial contribution and also encouraged other modes of transport like the Tube and buses.
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Once the decision was made to charge a fee, there arose the challenge of implementing it. So the responsibility for devising the entire system was awarded to Capita, Britain’s leading professional and support services company. Capita is the operational engine of the scheme—managing the payment process, the imaging system, the databases, the back office and the initial enforcement process. They contracted Mastek to develop the software for the multi-channel customer interface and to integrate several other components into the overall solution.
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Space matters: A congested city road
So how does the system work? A network of fixed and mobile cameras record the number plates of vehicles entering or moving in Central London. An automatic number plate recognition system interprets the live video stream, captures and converts number plates into data, and stores it in a database.
A second database of payments made by drivers is accumulated during the day. At the end of each day, the two databases—of vehicles entering the zone and of payments made by drivers—are compared, and a list of vehicles for which no payment or exemption is recorded, is drawn up.
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The list is then sent to the licensing agency which sends back information about the vehicles and their owners. This information is used to send out an initial penalty charge notice. In addition, there are various information delivery systems for drivers.
After its implementation, traffic inside the zone went down by 10 to 15 per cent, queues went down by 30 per cent and traffic speed increased by 10 to 15 per cent. The impact was felt outside the zone as well. Can the lessons from the London Congestion Charging project be applied to Mumbai? Each city is unique, and so are its problems. Hence, each city demands unique approaches. There are no quick-fix solutions to resolve congestion issues.
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There is a need to create a ring road around the city and beautify it by making it green. Hafeez Contractor, architect
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From a purely IT perspective, a congestion charging or road pricing scheme can be implemented in Mumbai. IT-driven dynamic road pricing or congestion charging schemes—such as the LCC, the Singapore Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) scheme, and others in the US and Canada—have been successful. On one hand, such schemes discourage motorists from making unnecessary journeys on congested roads during peak hours. On the other hand, they generate revenue that can be used to strengthen alternative modes of transport.
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Transportation is one of the main issues in the city. It is high time that Mumbai airport had two runways. Uday Kotak, managing director, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd
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The LCC scheme required huge upfront investments. Mumbai, as a linear city, may have a cost advantage because it can use fewer toll points. In addition, it can use low-cost technologies to reduce investments to the minimum. Technologically, the model that is viable for Mumbai is the Singapore ERP scheme. In this scheme, gantries are located at all entrances to the central business district and on roads with heavy traffic.
Each car is equipped with an in-vehicle unit that contains a pre-paid cash card. Every time a car passes under a gantry, a toll is automatically deducted from the cash card. This is done through a short-range radio communication system. ERP uses dynamic pricing: the amount of toll charged is based on the time of day and location.
A wealth of IT talent is available in India, and Indian companies have successfully built complex, large-scale, mission-critical solutions for businesses and governments around the world. So, building a solution to solve problems in our own backyard will be a welcome challenge for the Indian IT industry.
The author is chairman of Mastek
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