Vehicle numbers jump from 55.26 lakh to over 1.04 crore in a decade

The civic agencies’ efforts to ease traffic congestion at major junctions in the city have received mixed reactions from motorists. While some say the short-term measures are working, there are others who say only long-term measures will help. But experts feel that authorities should give impetus to popularising public transport to push people to shift from private vehicles.

In the last decade, the vehicle numbers increased exponentially in the city and road infrastructure built has not been sufficient to accommodate the growing number. In 2012-13, the total number of vehicles registered was 55.26 lakh, and it has crossed over 1.04 crore now. In 2020-21, a total of 2,55,624 two-wheelers were registered in the city; the number jumped to 2,57,983 in the previous financial year (2021-22). The number of new cars registered jumped from 95,875 to 1,11,774 in the same period. Data from the Transport Department shows that two-wheeler registrations increased by 3.87% and cars registration by 5.36%.

Ashish Verma, convener, IISc Sustainable Transportation Lab, said, “Adding only road infrastructure will never solve the problem of the traffic congestion in the city. The State government should think of attending to core issues. There is a need for policy decisions to reduce the number of vehicles hitting the road and shifting people to public transport. The fundamental approach should be scaling up use of public transport by incentivising it and discouraging people from using private transport that occupies more road space and consumes more energy.”