[callvvijay]

As others have pointed out here, I too am surprised to note that Chennai has more cars on road than Mumbai because of two facts

• Chennai has lesser population (4.34million in 2001) compared to Mumbai (11.98million in 2001)
• Chennai (not including surrounding Tiruvallur and Kanchipuram districts) has lesser area (176km^2) compared to Mumbai (603km^2)

Also, I remember reading an article a year or so ago which ranked Chennai as first in two-wheeler population.

[bbhavan]

Originally Posted by GTO

We all knew that Delhi forms the biggest car market in India. What was a surprising fact - at least to me - was that the capital has more cars than the next 3 cities combined!

The number of cars in a city has much to do with the availability of good quality roads. Actually we need to look at the density of cars per Km length of the roads. In that index, Mumbai leads the other cities. It had about 725 vehicles per km (international standard is 300) in 2010. (based on a DNA report).I do not have the latest numbers with me, but may not expect major shift in the position.

[FINTAIL]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Not sure if figures for Pune include that of Pimpri - Chinchwad as well.

It DOES include the PCMC as well- Summation of MH12 & MH14 RTO's.

See, IMO, Poona remains a well developed Tier-II city. The whole city hardly seems to be like a busy one, say Bangalore or Hyderabad. Go to the central regions- J.M road for example, it'll seem more like a cultural capital than anything else. NO signs of development is evident, apart from the high spending power, the number of swanky cars on the road, and lest we forget- Traffic Jams.

BUT- Cross the suburbs, and enter Hinjewadi. The IT Revolution. Yes- The place hardly seems to be a part of Pune. That said, I'd say one thing, if in Bangalore, the IT effect is evident everywhere, in Poona, all this is limited, mostly to the Western, and to some extent, the Eastern Suburbs.

Lets consider another view. Compare the registered numbers of vehicles (private cars) in Pune, to that of another II Tier city- Nagpur.

What seems like a mere offshoot of Poona, the PCMC Limits have more vehicles registered, when compared to Nagpur. Nagpur, as of October 2014, was on MH31EK, and PCMC was on MH14EP.

PCMC has issued more series. The Pune Central RTO- MH12, is on MH12LP. As is evident, the main part of Pune, covered by the MH12 RTO- is showing a slightly better rate of development than compared to Nagpur, which is expected. In the 'Fifties, Nagpur had the BYJ series, and Poona had- BYF & BYH for private cars.

TO SUM IT UP- The IT effect is limited to suburban Pune, and the PCMC area benefits from it the most. (MH14). Pune Central (MH12), is content in being an old-time city, trapped in the barriers of time, content to remain a so called "Cultural Capital", a place where Rickshawwallah's still refuse to ply.

Go to any of the Peth's. Apart from the congestion, I'll assure you, it still is 1985 in Pune.

[lancer_rit]

@GTO, this was always the case. I remember about 10+ years back, Delhi had more cars than next 4-5 big cities.

But it is a bit surprising to see that other cities (save for bangalore) have not closed the gap much.

[bluevolt]

Delhi roads always remain choked. I hardly can even touch 60kmph these days. The condition got worse in last five years. Much to blame the hight density of population also in this region. And with traffic flowing from Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad and other nearby places, it adds further to the traffic woes. With people upgrading cars every 3-4 years, the increase in number of cars can't be controlled in any way.

[vivriti]

The actual figures for Chennai should be higher. This is because a good part of greater Chennai is counted as belonging to Kanchipuram, Chengalpet and Tiruvallur districts. The first two are high in car ownership and most of Chennai's fast growing areas are part of these districts. A number of cars running in Chennai are also registered in Pondicherry.

[prakhar1998]

Even though Delhi is famous for its traffic, considering the number of cars, I would say the government and the road ministry is doing a commendable job of upgrading the infrastructure to suit the needs of the traffic.

Comparing Delhi's roads at the start of this century, to the roads now, the development is massive. With such a large increase in the number of new flyovers, elevated roads and underpasses, our roads have become faster, safer and more dependable.

Thanks to the Commonwealth games, these new developments came in faster, and in a large number.

Even now, new elevated stretches like Barapullah are being planned and constructed to ease the congestion problems in the national capital.

Comparing Delhi with a city like Mumbai, I feel we Delhites are blessed with way better roads.

Additionally, the Metro has helped largely in reducing congestion, and its ever expanding network is to be thanked.

However, there is only so much that can be done. The government needs to develop more cities, and subsequently ease the pressure on these Metros, or they are going to choke.

[Rajiv0909]

Cars/sq km or cars/km of paved road should be a better metric to compare

[rattanw]

This data is an eye opener in many aspects. For one it proves that the road infrastructure in Delhi may be better and larger than many other cities to accommodate such high vehicular density. Now I don't mean that other cities are not well planned, poor planning is an ailment which ails the entire country albeit some areas more than others. I remember staying in kolkata few years ago and the road traffic situation is considerably poorer than in Delhi. Secondly, I feel that the presence of Central government and over 150 diplomatic missions makes a difference with nothing less than couple of lakh vehicles easily of all makes and models attributable to them. At the same time I do not feel that inter state movement of vehicles is an issue as an equal number, if not more, of vehicles with non DL tags can be found plying in Delhi at any given time. Thirdly, the prices of petrol and diesel are lowest among the major cities in Delhi, which may have a certain psychological impact making it relatively easy to maintain a vehicle though this is very hard to quantify. Having said that, such high number of vehicles bring in equally severe problems and i just don't mean pollution. Dangerously though, the trend is unsustainable I believe, more so kind of a bubble which is bound to burst sooner or later.

[supertinu]

This statistic comes as no surprise, remember seeing it covered in media sometime back. One important point that needs to be kept in mind also is the culture prevalent in delhi and in general in North of living life king size and show off to some extent. That also fuels some of this growth.

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Nothing will happen. The woes will still be restricted to KR Puram, Whitefield, Kadibesanahalli, Silkboard, Manyata areas as usual.

The concept of NCR has never really seen any success path in case of Bangalore. Kengeri was planned to be a Satellite City to replicate Vashi but if one visits Vashi (Navi Mumbai) its a very positive story altogether.

Lesser spoken about Bangalore better it would be. Its a sorry state of infrastructure development with absolutely no planning or foresight. All the development is a result of reactionary approach to solve an existing problem temporarily and just pushing it some where else. You can add Doddanakundi junction on ORR to your list as well. That is one junction without a fly over and has millions of sqft of office space being developed on the junction. I live there so you can understand my .

Originally Posted by prakhar1998

Even though Delhi is famous for its traffic, considering the number of cars, I would say the government and the road ministry is doing a commendable job of upgrading the infrastructure to suit the needs of the traffic.

I agree, in my experience one city that has really transformed in India over the last 15 years has really been Delhi. Ofcourse it has the benefit of being the country's capital and commonwealth venue etc. but still no other city in India has even come close to meet the amount of change in terms of massively improved roads, metro network, cng for transport etc coming in place etc. Air quality still is not great but I wonder what it would have been without all the improvements made. 15 years back I remem my eyes would burn in rush hour in Delhi, atleast its not that bad yet.

[SLK]

Originally Posted by GTO

We all knew that Delhi forms the biggest car market in India. What was a surprising fact - at least to me - was that the capital has more cars than the next 3 cities combined!

Cars are priced lower in Delhi than the other big metros. Also, as a result of these two factors, Delhi's used car market gives you the best choice at the lowest prices.

Well, priced lower or not, compared to income levels (I'm not talking about the demography) Delhi has sight disadvantage to kind of match the purchasing power parity.

The real causes as I see it are:

- Abundance (if you've seen the last 30 years) of parking space compared to other Metros; and
- the cultural difference of pride (for a lack of a better word) in owning a car.
- Delhi's surrounding cities (read Noida/Gurgaon/Ghaziabad) are more active/ populous compared to suburbs around other cities (thereby somewhat adding to the cars even registered in Delhi)

Most cars in Delhi are still parked on an average 6 days a week. What we see on roads are
- traffic pileups due to bottlenecks. Most main roads in Delhi are covered with flyovers where Auto rickshaws and 3 wheel tempo struggle to move.
- Also, the sheer lack of office spaces in the main city also mean that everyone HAS TO travel, thus making long distance travel for work common.

It maybe safe to say more than 25% of the cars that actually drive/ park in the city are not registered in Delhi thereby not adding to the count in the graph.

I think Delhi, if managed properly can handle much more volume of cars .

[dozer]

I suppose Delhi's weather plays a major role in these high numbers of cars?
But then Bangalore, relative to other places has excellent weather and it's surprisingly second on the list.
I'm surprised by people saying Bangalore's public transport is poor; I've always though that the transport is excellent. Plenty of buses with different tiers among buses as well. I've never had a problem with it.

Edit: Population by state:

Delhi - 9.9m
Bangalore - 4.3m
Chennai - 4.3m
Mumbai - 11.98m
Hyderabad - 3.6m

Well, maybe the population count is a factor but then look at Mumbai.

[zombiedriver]

I'm not surprised by the numbers. Delhi has a lot going for it when compared to the other metros on the list let it be infrastructure, Lesser road tax, Lower fuel prices and a higher population. Bangalore has a superb bus transport system but it is just not enough. It is overcrowded for most of the day and is grossly insufficient in the peak hours not to mention there is no last mile connectivity. Mumbai has grown more vertically than horizontally partly because it is sandwiched by water. That made it a little easier to have a dependable railway system for public transport. Meaning its easier to lay a track mostly in an upward to downward fashion and horizontal in a few places to improve last mile connectivity than having to lay tracks in a zig zag fashion in a city like bangalore which has grown like an amoeba.

[rev_rohit]

It's true that Delhi has got best public transport in India, best traffic conditions in India but on the other hand it has worst attitude towards co-drivers in India. Incidences of road rage are quiet common. Disrespect for pedestrians and cyclists is deeply rooted (as I'm a cyclist myself)
Weather is always extreme, so there are very few days per year which are just perfect for a pleasant biking.
I think conditions are only getting worse with increasing traffic.

[SS-Traveller]

The more the roads, the greater the population of cars.

Road space in Indian cities is woefully inadequate: It is 18 percent of total city area in Delhi, 11.9 percent in Bangalore, 10 percent each in Mumbai and Chennai, and 6 percent in Kolkata.Ideally, road space should be closer to 30 percent.
Link

A quick look at the graph below tells us why Delhi still has a better traffic situation (average traffic speed) even though it has more cars than the next 3 cities - because it also has the highest total road length by a very long margin, highest road density as well as the largest road space-to-city area ratio, as compared to the next 4 cities.