Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal admitted something important about the odd-even plan on Wednesday: That it didn't have a huge effect on pollution, which was the whole point of the scheme. It did, however, have an impact on the city.
"Odd-even did lower pollution but not as much as expected," Kejriwal said in reply to the question of a student at a Delhi school. "However, it significantly reduced traffic congestion, the roads were cleared and people liked it very much."
Kejriwal was speaking ahead of round two of the odd-even scheme, a car-rationing experiment originally aimed at reducing the capital's debilitating pollution. From April 15 to April 30, odd- and even-numbered cars will be permitted to travel on Delhi's streets on odd and even dates respectively, with exceptions for women drivers, emergency vehicles and others.
Inconclusive experiment
The experiment was first attempted at the start of the year, between January 1 and and 15, after pollution levels reached dire levels in December last year. The scheme was largely considered successful in implementation, with residents of the capital for the most past adhering to the new rules and Delhi's typically gridlocked roads suddenly seemed much more manageable.
The experiment's impact on pollution, however, was much less conclusive. Research on the matter has been divided, with some claiming there was no reduction in particulate matter while others blamed the specific atmospheric conditions at the time for why pollution levels remained stubbornly high.
Now Kejriwal too has admitted that the experiment did not reduce pollution as much as they were hoping. Yet, his government is nevertheless going ahead with another round of odd-even rationing – with a notification that expressly mentions controlling vehicular pollution as its aim – and Kejriwal has even mentioned the possibility that there will be odd-even fortnights every month.
No more traffic
"The most visible effect (of odd-even) was the decongestion of roads. Roads were empty and travel time was halved," Kejriwal said after the first round in January. "This gave people more time to live their lives. There were no more traffic jams to irritate them. Many people are saying this should continue."
Here is the problem with saying odd-even was successful at decongesting roads: It's like insisting that a daily 12-hour power cut reduces electricity usage.
If the odd-even plan did not reduce congestion, the only conclusion would be that the Delhi government had failed at implementing the rationing scheme. Any time you order a significant number of cars off the roads, traffic jams will naturally come down.
Root causes
If congestion was the real problem in the city, the government could very well ban 90% of cars through some formula everyday and traffic would be even easier to navigate. It is important, however, to remember a few things that go into this claim that odd-even led to decongested roads.
- Enforcing odd-even comes with real costs. It's not cheap to run the scheme, because of added pressure on the city's public transport systems, more work for traffic police personnel and various other costs. Oh, and the Delhi government also spends a lot of money simply advertising the scheme and encouraging people to stick to it.
- It actually affects people's mobility. The government is making a calculated decision to prevent people from using cars that they have spent money on for transport purposes. When that is done as a one-off during an emergency situation, as in January, it seems achievable. But when it could become permanent, as Kejriwal is claiming it might, the entire economics of car-owning in the capital are upended.
- Related to this is, of course, the threat that a permanent odd-even scheme will not only fail to bring down pollution, it will also drive car-owners to buy a cheaper, more-polluting second car to for use on alternate days.
- By itself, it does nothing to address the reason Delhi's roads were congested in the first place: incoherent urban policy, inadequate public transport, arbitrary grant of auto rickshaw licences and the inexorable rise in car ownership as a response to all of these problems.
None of this is to suggest odd-even is inherently bad. Indeed, the Delhi government's plan for it goes beyond just a publicly visible reduction of traffic. Kejriwal has said he intends to make odd-even fully permanent in a year and half once the capital has beefed up its public transport capability.
10-point plan
This, coupled with the government's 10-point plan to lower pollution, such as reducing dependence on thermal power plants, rerouting truck travel within the city, implementing plantation drives and attacking vehicular emissions, all seek to directly address the root issue.
But the Aam Aadmi Party government has shown a tendency to prioritise that which is evidently visible – in this case a very evident odd-even formula – over getting down to brass tacks. Moreover the goal posts have already been shifted from lowering pollution to just reducing traffic.
Odd-even can still end up being tremendously useful for the capital – it has certainly sparked a very public conversation about what Delhi needs to do to reduce pollution – but it is crucial that citizens know why their mobility is being curbed in the first place.
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