India is a land of traditions, Vedas, unity in diversity and many more. Presently the more concerning and worrying fact is it’s very densely populated with great need to increase pace of infrastructure development rate. Here, daily Commutation and most of the goods transportation viz. logistic services are mainly dependent on road ways especially those involving intercity travel. Also most of the villages are connected only through roads. But this road transport itself is becoming a problem with increased traffic jams as well as increased time to clear those jams . The present article tries to put-up some of the views on this area of emerging problem to the readers.
Traffic jam as we know is a result of congestion due to heavy occupancy of roads by vehicles especially near signals.
Consequences of Traffic Jams:
1. Health related issues:
There are a lot of health related issues that the individuals waiting and struggling in the traffic jams are subjected to. Stress, loosing cool and becoming bad tempered, headaches and high blood pressure are the common health issues Continuous stress can even lead to mental depression in people on a long run.
2. Delayed daily schedule:
The next thing we could observe when we are stuck in a traffic jam is a delay in our schedule of the day and forced to face consequences without mistake. Say, getting late to office and being noted by the boss that may lead to a bad remark on our career if the same situation persists. To avoid this scenario one has to consider the traffic congestion and its clearance time in his travel schedule and start early. This may for sure save his face infront of one’s boss but in any case the travel time increases consuming the time unnecessarily.
3. Fuel wastage:
We know how the fuel price has been reaching heights and also know that vehicle running at speeds below the rated speed and also vehicles with engine on in neutral position consumes lot of fuel. This is what happens with traffic congestion in narrow roads or heavily occupied roads with frequent signals.
4. Pollution:
We have to accept that nobody wants to spend their all life at traffic signals, junctions and narrow roads. The riders slow down or stop only because of congestion or red signal. But we find many riders at our back blowing horns unnecessarily as if we are sleeping at that juncture and would not move. This results in a lot of sound pollution. Also as most of us are habituated not to turn off the engine at the jams, causes the fuel to burn. Hence more is the quantity of exhaust gases and hence the rise in toxic pollutants in air depriving air of its consumable characteristics. Recent study showed that world’s 14 most polluted cities are in India lead by Delhi.
5. Emergencies:
We find it on a daily basis that ambulances struggle to get through the congested traffic waiting in a long queue especially at the traffic signals So traffic jams in this way cause harm to lives of people.
Major Causes for traffic issues India:
1. Lack of proper roads and their maintenance:
Effect of particular roads being poorly maintained or layed down is seen in terms of hike in traffic in alternate roads/ routes. We have nearly 97,000 kilometers stretch of roads as a part of national highways. Despite collection of tolls at these highways and hike in the toll fee periodically, many highways are deprived of their maintenance. Many of these are haunted by issues like deep pits that may be caused over a period of time due to continuous road usage by heavy vehicles Even in intercity roads are not free of maintenance issues. It is a very common thing in our country to find that after the new roads are laid by roads and buildings department, the clever electrical or water distribution department officials somehow get lot of motivation to improve their services by digging these newly laid roads to lay there pipelines/underground cables etc. and leaving those portions of roads disrupted or discontinued or improperly filled as if they don’t have any involvement further. If somehow the roads department solve this issue by filling the pits and patches, the motivation to dig these roads occurs again in officials of other departments. Another perspective also includes corruption to some extent due to which “on-paper road quality is perfect but “off the paper’ in reality the road quality is poor due to improper or insufficient mixing of the ingredients. This leads to early wearing of roads making them unusable.
2. Reckless driving:
Most of the traffic issues and accidents arises due to reckless driving of the drivers. Traffic rules are created by experts considering the various safety and and traffic congestion aspects. If people follow these as expected out of a responsible citizen, traffic issues and unsafe incidents can be minimized a lot. But People do not follow the traffic rules either due to unawareness or recklessness . Violations such as rushing to right side of road and getting on wrong way in a haste and impatient mood to reach destinations early result in blocking of the way for incoming traffic leading to unnecessary traffic jam at signals, railway crossings etc. Other violations such as over-speeding sometimes result in accidents leading to unwanted traffic jams in additions to undesirable life & property damages.
3. Ongoing constructions:
With increasing need to infrastructure development, in most of the cities there are many road expansion and metro rail construction project going on which take longer periods to get completed. For carrying out activities of these projects a large chunk of roads is blocked reducing the usable space for commuters. This results in increased traffic congestion.
4. More number of vehicles:
India as a nation is consistently emerging as a powerful economy with its individuals exposed to higher purchase capacities and more financial services. With this irrespective of the need, as a symbol of prestige, an individual opts buying vehicles. Earlier an entire family used to have a single vehicle at home. Now-a-days, in many households, there is one vehicle for each individual of that family. Hence, day by day the number of vehicles coming on road is increasing leading to increased traffic congestion especially at signals and junctions due to limited road infrastructure.
5. Less number of public transport vehicles:
Though availability of public transport facilities such as buses and rail network is considerably high in cities especially metros, it is not at par with the flow of people. Thus, effectively speaking availability of public transport is limited to few individuals. Also due to poor maintenance say, improper timings, less frequency, untidy and choking of these facilities with people beyond their capacities, many individuals choose their own transport over these leading to more vehicles on road and hence increased traffic congestion.
6. Lack of organized parking space:
In most of the cases especially in urban areas, its hard to find proper parking place for our vehicles say near a normal family restaurant, temple, cloth store etc. So the vehicle owners and drivers do not hesitate to park their vehicles near extreme right or left edges of the roads blocking a portion of it. With this usable space of road decreases and hence a spike in traffic. The situation becomes worse during the days of festivals and specific holidays.
Traffic jam as we know is a result of congestion due to heavy occupancy of roads by vehicles especially near signals.
Consequences of Traffic Jams:
1. Health related issues:
There are a lot of health related issues that the individuals waiting and struggling in the traffic jams are subjected to. Stress, loosing cool and becoming bad tempered, headaches and high blood pressure are the common health issues Continuous stress can even lead to mental depression in people on a long run.
2. Delayed daily schedule:
The next thing we could observe when we are stuck in a traffic jam is a delay in our schedule of the day and forced to face consequences without mistake. Say, getting late to office and being noted by the boss that may lead to a bad remark on our career if the same situation persists. To avoid this scenario one has to consider the traffic congestion and its clearance time in his travel schedule and start early. This may for sure save his face infront of one’s boss but in any case the travel time increases consuming the time unnecessarily.
3. Fuel wastage:
We know how the fuel price has been reaching heights and also know that vehicle running at speeds below the rated speed and also vehicles with engine on in neutral position consumes lot of fuel. This is what happens with traffic congestion in narrow roads or heavily occupied roads with frequent signals.
4. Pollution:
We have to accept that nobody wants to spend their all life at traffic signals, junctions and narrow roads. The riders slow down or stop only because of congestion or red signal. But we find many riders at our back blowing horns unnecessarily as if we are sleeping at that juncture and would not move. This results in a lot of sound pollution. Also as most of us are habituated not to turn off the engine at the jams, causes the fuel to burn. Hence more is the quantity of exhaust gases and hence the rise in toxic pollutants in air depriving air of its consumable characteristics. Recent study showed that world’s 14 most polluted cities are in India lead by Delhi.
5. Emergencies:
We find it on a daily basis that ambulances struggle to get through the congested traffic waiting in a long queue especially at the traffic signals So traffic jams in this way cause harm to lives of people.
Major Causes for traffic issues India:
1. Lack of proper roads and their maintenance:
Effect of particular roads being poorly maintained or layed down is seen in terms of hike in traffic in alternate roads/ routes. We have nearly 97,000 kilometers stretch of roads as a part of national highways. Despite collection of tolls at these highways and hike in the toll fee periodically, many highways are deprived of their maintenance. Many of these are haunted by issues like deep pits that may be caused over a period of time due to continuous road usage by heavy vehicles Even in intercity roads are not free of maintenance issues. It is a very common thing in our country to find that after the new roads are laid by roads and buildings department, the clever electrical or water distribution department officials somehow get lot of motivation to improve their services by digging these newly laid roads to lay there pipelines/underground cables etc. and leaving those portions of roads disrupted or discontinued or improperly filled as if they don’t have any involvement further. If somehow the roads department solve this issue by filling the pits and patches, the motivation to dig these roads occurs again in officials of other departments. Another perspective also includes corruption to some extent due to which “on-paper road quality is perfect but “off the paper’ in reality the road quality is poor due to improper or insufficient mixing of the ingredients. This leads to early wearing of roads making them unusable.
2. Reckless driving:
Most of the traffic issues and accidents arises due to reckless driving of the drivers. Traffic rules are created by experts considering the various safety and and traffic congestion aspects. If people follow these as expected out of a responsible citizen, traffic issues and unsafe incidents can be minimized a lot. But People do not follow the traffic rules either due to unawareness or recklessness . Violations such as rushing to right side of road and getting on wrong way in a haste and impatient mood to reach destinations early result in blocking of the way for incoming traffic leading to unnecessary traffic jam at signals, railway crossings etc. Other violations such as over-speeding sometimes result in accidents leading to unwanted traffic jams in additions to undesirable life & property damages.
3. Ongoing constructions:
With increasing need to infrastructure development, in most of the cities there are many road expansion and metro rail construction project going on which take longer periods to get completed. For carrying out activities of these projects a large chunk of roads is blocked reducing the usable space for commuters. This results in increased traffic congestion.
4. More number of vehicles:
India as a nation is consistently emerging as a powerful economy with its individuals exposed to higher purchase capacities and more financial services. With this irrespective of the need, as a symbol of prestige, an individual opts buying vehicles. Earlier an entire family used to have a single vehicle at home. Now-a-days, in many households, there is one vehicle for each individual of that family. Hence, day by day the number of vehicles coming on road is increasing leading to increased traffic congestion especially at signals and junctions due to limited road infrastructure.
5. Less number of public transport vehicles:
Though availability of public transport facilities such as buses and rail network is considerably high in cities especially metros, it is not at par with the flow of people. Thus, effectively speaking availability of public transport is limited to few individuals. Also due to poor maintenance say, improper timings, less frequency, untidy and choking of these facilities with people beyond their capacities, many individuals choose their own transport over these leading to more vehicles on road and hence increased traffic congestion.
6. Lack of organized parking space:
In most of the cases especially in urban areas, its hard to find proper parking place for our vehicles say near a normal family restaurant, temple, cloth store etc. So the vehicle owners and drivers do not hesitate to park their vehicles near extreme right or left edges of the roads blocking a portion of it. With this usable space of road decreases and hence a spike in traffic. The situation becomes worse during the days of festivals and specific holidays.
Measures to be taken to reduce the traffic jams:
1. Using the public transportation:
Government should increase the number of public transport vehicles such as buses so that frequency of buses increases and hence people will use them and in turn reduce using their personal vehicles and hence reducing the number of vehicles on roads.
2. Implementing the strict rules on traffic:
Government should appoint a traffic police at every signal so that he could ensure that the traffic rules are being followed and not being violated.
3. Imposing compulsory fines on violation of traffic rules:
As we know that we sometimes do not follow the traffic rules because of some or the other reasons but we should be imposed with fine and make them compulsory so that people will reduce violation the traffic rules and hence helping in reduction of traffic jams.
4. Continuous maintenance and inspection of roads:
Government should take care about maintaining the roads. They should continuously monitor the condition of roads and do the necessity to make them good for utilizing without any obstacles.
5. Public awareness:
People should take active participation in reducing the fuel wastage at the traffic jams when the vehicle is not moving. They should be well aware of the fact that at the jams they should turn off the engines which could help in reducing the emission of pollution causing gases and help in reducing noise pollution.
1. Using the public transportation:
Government should increase the number of public transport vehicles such as buses so that frequency of buses increases and hence people will use them and in turn reduce using their personal vehicles and hence reducing the number of vehicles on roads.
2. Implementing the strict rules on traffic:
Government should appoint a traffic police at every signal so that he could ensure that the traffic rules are being followed and not being violated.
3. Imposing compulsory fines on violation of traffic rules:
As we know that we sometimes do not follow the traffic rules because of some or the other reasons but we should be imposed with fine and make them compulsory so that people will reduce violation the traffic rules and hence helping in reduction of traffic jams.
4. Continuous maintenance and inspection of roads:
Government should take care about maintaining the roads. They should continuously monitor the condition of roads and do the necessity to make them good for utilizing without any obstacles.
5. Public awareness:
People should take active participation in reducing the fuel wastage at the traffic jams when the vehicle is not moving. They should be well aware of the fact that at the jams they should turn off the engines which could help in reducing the emission of pollution causing gases and help in reducing noise pollution.
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