CSE analysis says Mobility crisis is behind the pollution in Delhi
Graph shows Reduction in travel speed on 25 stretches in Delhi (past 45 days starting September 15, 2024)
The analysis has been done by Anumita Roychowdhury, Sayan Roy, Shubham Srivastava, Sharanjeet
Kaur, Richa Pandey, Caleb Phillips and Shambhavi Shukla
Despite
taking several technology measures to curb pollution from vehicles, vehicular
pollution has emerged as the top polluter in the capital city of Delhi.
Explosive motorization, choking congestion and inadequate public transport
services are undercutting the emission gains from technology measures in the
transport sector of the city.
This has emerged from the new analysis by the Centre for Science
and Environment (CSE) that has shown how even after implementing the largest
ever CNG programme for the public transport and local commercial transport,
phasing out of 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles, restrictions
on entry of non-destined trucks, introduction of Bharat Stage 6 emissions
standards, and onset of the fleet electrification, vehicles are still the key
polluter due to the growing mobility crisis.
In view of this, CSE has assessed the factors that are
responsible for the growing mobility crisis and congestion woes that are
contributing to the toxic pollution build up. CSE has carried out a deep dive
analysis of the current trends in particulate matter pollution, trend in
motorisation, congestion impacts, and the state of public transport to
understand this growing challenge.
This analysis has been
done based on the:
(i) Publicly available granular
real time data from the CPCB’s official online portal Central Control Room for
Air Quality Management. The data has been captured from 37 official stations
under the Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System (CAAQMS) spread
across Delhi.
(ii) Dynamic estimation of
real-time data on source contribution by the Decision Support System for Air
Quality Management of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) to
assess the real-time trend in the relative contribution of different sources of
pollution.
(iii) Farm fire counts from the
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) and contributions from farm
stubble fires to Delhi’s air quality, as estimated by the Ministry of Earth
Science’s SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research).
(iv) Traffic speed in the city
based on Google Maps API data- a measure of congestion during early winters
(September 15 –October 29, 2024) on 25 road stretches of key roads in Delhi and
relate it with the pollution trends.
(v) Congestion and productivity
loss-based congestion data from Google API has been calculated based on State’s
labor law department figures.
(vi) Year-wise registered city
bus fleet trend based on Socio Economic Report for various years
(vii) Bus and metro accessibility
analysis using geographical information system (GIS), based on the ward-wise
population and station locations.
(viii) Ridership trends analysis
of DTDC and Cluster buses based on GNCTD Economic Survey of Delhi.
(ix) Comparative analysis of
journey cost of public transport vs. private transport based on primary data
collected by CSE.
This is
Part 1 of the report
Other
parts will discuss about the key findigs and need for action