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Ridesharing doesn't just decongest traffic, it frees up parking space too

NEW DELHI: Traffic congestion during peak hours in four major cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata — costs the economy Rs 1.47 lakh crore annually, according to a study conducted by global consultancy firm.The peak hours for this survey were 7-9 am and 6-8 pm during which commuters spent one-and-a-half times longer to travel a given distance as compared to non-peak hours, said the report by Boston Consulting Group ( BCG ).The study across the four cities in January has found Kolkata is the worst among them so far as congestion is concerned followed by Bengaluru. Delhi despite having maximum number of registered vehicles (little over 10 million) seems to be better because of its good road network, which is about 12% the capital’s total area.On the contrary, Kolkata has barely 6% of its total area under road network. The survey covered 300 persons from each city.According to the report, Delhi has the highest share of 45% of people using their private cars for commuting while in Bengaluru their share is 38%. Mumbai tops the list when it comes to using public transport for commuting followed by Kolkata and it’s worst in Bengaluru.“In Kolkata, private minibuses are are main mode of transport. Despite having high share of people using public transport, Kolkata is congested for reasons like low share of road network, poor geometrics and huge flow of vehicles in core part of the city,” said urban transport expert Prof N Ranganathan.He added the situation in Bengaluru is alarming as road network planning is obnoxious, traffic engineering and management is missing and there is blatant misuse of road.The BCG report prepared for Uber claimed that on average 89% of commuters indicated their plans to purchase a car in the next five years.However, 80% of them also said they would shelve the idea, if rideshare could meet their requirements on “price, timeliness and availability.”Ride-share is using a mobile app to book a ride in a privately owned vehicle. Uber has been pushing for this.“Ride-share is a good intervention purely from congestion point of view. But the other issues of safety of passengers and liability in case of road accidents, which are crucial, also need to be addressed. Safety on women passenger is a concern,” Ranganathan pointed out.