Estimation of Congestion Cost in the City of Kolkata—A Case Study

Aparajita Chakrabartty, Sudakshina Gupta

Centre for Urban Economic Studies, Department of Economics, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India.

DOI: 10.4236/cus.2015.32009                

Abstract

The demand for mobility has risen significantly all over the world as a result of the fast pace of urbanization. The situation is no different in India. In India, personal vehicles have increased tremendously to take care of this rising need for mobility as provision of public transport has been inadequate. This exponential growth of vehicles has led to traffic congestion which is a hindrance to mobility. Traffic congestion leads to increase in operating cost of vehicles, delay, pollution and stress. The problem is acute in the Indian city of Kolkata as the road space here is only 6% compared to 23% in Delhi and 17% in Mumbai. This paper makes an attempt to measure the external cost of congestion on the roads of Kolkata. The method used to measure the cost of congestion follows that of R. J. Smeed (1968). The result obtained or the cost of congestion estimated for the city of Kolkata indicates that there is a considerable monetary loss that is being incurred. An attempt to measure the cost of congestion in the city of Kolkata has not been made before, although studies have tried to estimate congestion in Kolkata city.

Keywords

Urbanization, Transportation, Motorization, Traffic Congestion, External Cost, Congestion Cost

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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