How Can Congestion Pricing Solve Traffic Woes?
Image source: LiveMint By Devika P V, The term ‘congestion pricing’ is used to describe a distance, area or cordon-based road user charging policy around congested areas to reduce the use of private vehicles and increase the use of public transportation. Congestion pricing is also known as electronic road pricing. Drivers usually ignore the social costs of using the road and only calculate their benefits which result in traffic congestion and air pollution. Singapore was the first country to implement Congestion pricing in 1975, followed by London in 2003 and Stockholm in 2007. The need for congestion pricing is increasing every year due to many reasons, the main being population growth which affects the number of vehicles on the roads and causes delays, air pollution and increased fuel consumption. While the number of vehicles is increasing, the size of the roads remains the same. As of now, Delhi is considered to be the highly congested state followed by Mumbai, Bangalore a...