Odd-Even Rule Has Made Delhi's Roads Less Congested, Says Shreya Gadepalli

The Arvind Kejriwal-led government in Delhi may have received much criticism for implementing the odd-even vehicle rule, but the chief minister has certainly made some friends. Shreya Gadepalli, regional director, projects, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, is one among them. Gadepalli's organisation works with cities across the world to devise transportation systems that curtail greenhouse gas emissions, lower poverty, and improve the quality of urban life. In an interview with Shanu Athiparambath, Gadepalli, who has studied Industrial Design at Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, shares her views on parking spaces, the odd-even road space rationing rule and high-density building. Edited excerpts:

Athiparambath: Have Delhi's roads become less congested because of the odd-even rule?

Gadepalli: The roads have become less congested. Trips times have also cut in half.

Athiparambath: But, the crowd shift to the Delhi Metro network has made it difficult to travel in these trains. Many people are forced to travel in auto- rickshaws. They will probably spent more on traveling.

Gadepalli: Not necessarily. It is possible to share an auto.

Athiparambath: But, most people do not want to share an auto.

Gadepalli: It is their choice.

Athiparambath: Yes. It is their choice. But, it is not really clear whether it is better to drive through a congested road, or whether it is better to travel in a crowded metro.

Gadepalli: Crowded metro trains are definitely an issue that needs to be solved. First of all, this is an experiment which started as a dialogue on what is good for our cities. I do not think that the odd-even rule can solve all of Delhi's transportation problems. Nobody thinks so. We need to augment the capacity of public transport. Many things need to be done simultaneously.  

Athiparambath: You said that the Delhi Metro is not profitable in many routes. So, does it make sense to raise the capacity of the metro?

Gadepalli: When the frequency is not high, not many people want to travel in the Delhi Metro. When not many people travel, there would not be enough frequency. It is a chicken and egg problem. Many metro stations are far from where people stay. Without good feeder services, they are inaccessible. And above all comes the issue of urban sprawl. The Metro services make sense only on very high demand corridors.

Athiparambath: It is also about the preferences of people, right? In American cities like Atlanta, for example, the government was not able to get more people into mass transit. Atlanta has one of the best mass transit systems in the world. But, people still do not use it.

Gadepalli: As long as traveling in personal automobiles is a convenient option, people will exercise that option because traveling in a car is more comfortable than traveling in the metro. When free parking spaces are available, people are more likely to drive than to use mass transit. 

Athiparambath: Why do people hate to pay for parking? Is this because there is a psychological barrier?

Gadepalli: It is partly a psychological barrier. The government also has to ensure that public transportation works well. I do not think that odd-even rule is a permanent solution to any of these problems. Perhaps we can move into a congestion pricing system at some point in time.

Athiparambath: Did the Delhi Metro solve the parking problem at Connaught Place to an extent? I think the congestion in parking spaces declined by about 10 per cent.

Gadepalli: It could be true. But, a possible reason is that the appeal of Connaught Place has declined, too. Earlier many trips in Delhi used to be to and from Connaught Place. But, this is no longer the case.

Athiparambath: I think the proposal to charge for parking is going to be implemented in Chennai. It is not clear to me why the proposal to charge people for parking or driving through the road does not have much public support.  

Gadepalli: It is not just about public support. This has more to do with how policies are being made in India. People who formulate policies have their own interests. Many senior people at media houses own cars and influence policy.

Athiparambath: When researchers study public opinion, they do not see any evidence that people support policies that benefit them. If you take any government policy, there is no evidence that there is more support for it among the people who benefit from them, except in some rare cases like people who smoke being against policies that punish them. Public policy has more to do with the moral views of voters. If voters love a policy, we are bound to get it.

Gadepalli: Not really. In countries like ours, policy making is not a straight forward process. The belief that there is a machine-like logic behind everything, including ballot box politics, is foolish.

Athiparambath: An argument is that people will buy more cars to beat the system if the odd-even policy is in place for very long.

Gadepalli: If the odd-even policy is in place for long, with no other supportive policies that dissuade the use of cars, this would definitely happen.  

Athiparambath: A typical parking lot in Manhattan, for example, is 300 square feet. That is almost the size of a studio apartment. So, why do people underestimate the cost of having free parking spaces?  But, if you take Indian cities like Mumbai, open space per person is much less. This means that the cost parking spaces impose are much higher. Yet, parking charges are much lower in Indian cities.

Gadepalli: Policy making is done by a few.

Athiparambath: They can start charging people for driving through roads. It seems to be totally worth it.

Gadepalli: Congestion pricing is totally worth it. But, it is not so easy to implement. You need to have many systems in place. First, you need to have the registration system in place. Cities like Delhi have a more robust registration database than in other cities. But, probably a third of the vehicles are not where they are registered. Then we need cameras to capture cars.

Athiparambath: But, if roads are privatised, that would become easier, right?

Gadepalli: There should be demand-based pricing of street networks. Streets should be priced more when the demand is higher. In many cities like Singapore, it is area-based congestion pricing and not street-network based congestion pricing.

Athiparambath: Even if offices provide free parking to prevent parking off street, people will still be driving through the streets. Street space is not private property.

Gadepalli: Parking is a commodity whether it is on a private space or a public space. You cannot give it for free. Parking on a private space also has an impact on the street network. People should be made to pay for not just for the cost of parking, but also for the usage of the streets. That is why we need proxy charging to account for this impact.

Athiparambath: Buildings have to become taller for people to have more space to walk through the streets, so that there are more parking spaces, too. There seems to be a lot of agreement on the top, among politicians and policy analysts that high density building is necessary. I do not know where the disagreement comes from.

Gadepalli: Building density, street space, and parking are independent issues. Higher intensity land use has many advantages. A good street network with safe walking and cycling infrastructure is essential to support transit use. As regards parking, less is better than more.  At present, a lot of space is wasted in margins around low-density buildings. Buildings can get taller and denser, and margin spaces could become part of the street network giving more space to walk.  Illegal buildings are built more densely than legal constructions. You do need to have better monitoring to ensure that buildings are safe, yet dense. A lot of opposition to high density building comes from planners. Many planners still are not comfortable with the idea of high density building. But, a lot of progressive urban planners are making their way into policy circles now. Things may change.

Athiparambath: I think many have an aesthetic preference for walking and bicycling. But, Delhi seems to be a dangerous place to walk or bicycle to work. Most accidents happen to people who walk or bicycle. 

Gadepalli: India has one of the highest road fatalities in the world. About 20 people per lakh urban population die on urban roads every year. But, if you take Tokyo or Stockholm, road fatalities are about a twentieth of those in India. It is almost death by design in India. 

Athiparambath: I do not remember the exact figures, but when I looked at the figures a decade ago or so, the number of fatalities in a year in the US was around 40,000 or so. India is many folds more populated than the US, but it did not seem to be disproportionately higher.

Gadepalli: The US is not the best of examples; Europe is more progressive.

Athiparambath: Many people assume that when there are dense buildings, there will be more vehicles on roads, too. But, this seems to be wrong. 

Gadepalli: In business as usual, denser buildings would have more parking resulting in more vehicles on the roads. But it need not be that way. 

Athiparambath: But, when buildings are dense, there should be more parking spaces, too.

Gadepalli: No. We must completely disjoin the issue of parking and building density. At present, building height and density is determined by the width of the road it abuts. However, density should be proportionate to transit capacity and not to road capacity. On the other hand, parking supply should be limited to road capacity. Building should be allowed to have no parking. Parking, if any, should be limited in area to no more than a third of the plot area. 

Athiparambath: Former World Bank researcher Alain Bertaud argues that parking should be provided by private developers.

Gadepalli: Parking is a commodity. The government should not subsidise parking. But, the amount of parking that can be built on private property should also be limited.

Athiparambath: But, people have certain preferences and when you limit parking, you are violating their preferences. Maybe the government should build more roads and increase transit capacity. Perhaps by allowing more private partnership.

Gadepalli: Expecting buildings to have minimum parking is as much of a violation as constraining the supply of parking. However, we should keep in mind that parking has an impact on street congestion. Car use has an impact on air quality and livability. In the interest of all, it is fair that constraints be put on motor vehicle use. Controlling parking supply is one such tool. I do not take the extreme libertarian view that everything should be private. Privatisation has some advantages. But, complete privatisation does not do well for everybody. 

Athiparambath: Economist Donald Shoup argues that instead of providing free parking for employees should reimburse the cost of parking. He argues that employees are happier that way. If this is true, why are companies not doing this?

Gadepalli: There are a lot of things that make sense, but people do not think about it. But, this does not mean that these things do not make any sense.