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-   -   Mumbai leads car density rankings at 430 cars per km (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/177403-mumbai-leads-car-density-rankings-430-cars-per-km.html)

A statistical report released by the State Transport Ministry has claimed that Mumbai has the highest car density per kilometer of road, as compared to all other metro cities of the country. Interestingly, New Delhi has the most number of private cars on the road (27.9 lakh), but still amounts to a lower car density of just 93/km. This low car density in Delhi is a result of the vast network of roads available in the city.

On the other hand, the road network in Mumbai has been stuck at around 2,000 km from the past few years. Meanwhile, around 172 new vehicles are added to Mumbai's existing and congested road network, every day. This has resulted in a 56% rise in the number of private cars plying on city roads in the last six years, thus enhancing congestion and probabilities of traffic jams. Mumbai has a total of 8.6 lakh private cars, which occupy 85% of the total available road space of the city.

City planners claim that this outnumbering car density has been a major hindrance in improving the quality of public transport services. Moreover, the growth in number of cars on the road can only be stopped by providing comfortable public transport alternatives to the citizens.

The rising car density figure has piled up a big problem of parking on Mumbai roads. Experts claim that about 20% of the roads in Mumbai are used for parking vehicles, which negatively affects the operation of public transport buses. Moreover, with EMIs for hatchbacks going as down as Rs. 5000-8000 per month, the middle class too can now comfortably afford a private car.

On the highest car density chart, Mumbai is followed by Kolkata with 308 cars per km, while Pune comes third at 248 cars per km.

Source: ET Auto



Link to Team-BHP News

Am surprised that Bangalore does not figure in the top 3 and moreover at Pune being at number 3.

Good Find Bhavik!

After driving in 3 Metros/ Mega cities Viz. Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai(didn't get a chance to drive in Kolkata yet) and also the next bigger cities like Benguluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Vadodara, I feel Mumbai traffic is the most organized and people in Mumbai still follow lane discipline to the highest. IMHO.

No offence to anyone, but I feel Delhi seems to be the Worst with very high % of Lawless driving!Again IMHO.

Now I am trying to imagine with statistics/data mentioned in the above post, What will happen if Mumbai is replaced by Delhi? :Shockked:

PS: Above observation is purely personal and is based on considerable time spent on respective city roads behind the wheel, in vehicles with respective local no. plates.

Regards,
Maverick79.

As a local, no offence taken and I completely agree with your sentiments Maverick. Delhi surely lacks the road manners among users while I personally find Bombay one of the better ones. Lack of apathy here really towards the road-rules! :Frustrati

The issue with Bombay is that it is a sea shore based city while Delhi is helped by presence of many satellite towns in NCR all around NCT, hence the better road space available and lesser cars/kms. Never the less, I can see car density/km growing as more and more middle class moving onto cars from bikes and situation is likely to get worse with time, unless the local authorities wake up and take hold of the situation with proper measures in place. please:

Is the full list published anywhere? I checked the link provided and didn't see a list. I am really curious to see what number Bangalore is at. I too am shocked that Bangalore doesn't figure at the top, looking at the Current Traffic situation here.

This article only talks about the density of Private Cars and not necessarily the vehicular population.

In fact, the following quote does full justice to your queries:

It only means the Vehicles are getting added to the roads on regular basis but road length has remained the same.

Bangalore in terms of Vehicular Population stands 2nd to Delhi and that is a very well accepted fact but then it might not fare very high in comparision with Mumbai when it comes to the Density of cars per Square Kilometer.

No apparent reason except for the fact that Mumbai has always been a Skyscraper's paradise since more than 3-4 decades while Bangalore is witnessing that only in the past decade.

Apartment culture in Mumbai and Pune existed since Ambassador and Premier Padimini days while Bangalore always was famous with Independent Houses and Lay-outs. I might not be entirely right but this can be a calculated guess from what I have noticed.

Also, Pune fare miserably low on Public Transport count when you pitch it against Bangalore. One of the reasons why we see more car density there.

In terms of growth, we all know how most of the cities in the list have been growing in the recent past - Bangalore, Pune, NCR and the fact that Pune only enjoys its proximity to Mumbai and still not a state capital.

Not every KM of road has the capacity to hold the same number of vehicles, so the statistic won't be consistent across the board. A 100 ft road has more surface area per km than a 40 ft. road, a six lane section of ORR can hold more cars per km than a 4 lane section of the same ORR. For Bangalore, one also needs to account for unusable moonscape masquerading as roads.lol:

Bangalore may not lack in terms of total kms of road network, but most of it is narrow roads. Be interesting if someone compared average road area/km length in different cities, and then calculate car density per sq.km. road area. That would be a more realistic measure and I bet Bangalore's real situation will show up.

For a megapolis, which has a great transport system (WR, CR, BEST, NMMT, TMT) these numbers are a bit shocking, but then when i read post from 'chetan_rao' i got the jist of it. I think simply put the vehicle registrations have gone up but the road length has more or less remined the same. This is correctly corroborated by the fact that Bombay has not seen any major road network except for the 'Eastern Freeway' in recent years. The much hyped coastal road and the MTHL are i feel generations ahead, and i doubt i will see those in my lifetime.


Regards
Dieseltuned

I am taking this survey with a pinch of salt, especially when it comes to Pune vs Bangalore. Pune sure has poor public transport ( improving in baby steps) but I still think Bangalore has more density of cars than Pune
and this is based on my simple observation. Bangalore also has more network of roads km wise but am I the only one who feels the existing roads in Pune are actually wider than the ones in Bangalore, though lesser in number ?? Nevertheless, overall Bangalore infrastructure is much better than Pune, the latter being non-capital.

Regarding Bangalore traffic, I am of the opinion that it's the narrow roads of Bangalore that makes the traffic appear more than the actual population of vehicles itself ( which also is high no doubt). I feel Mumbai has more total count of cars, but because of broader roads, traffic movement is better than Bangalore. May be I am wrong

We all do. Surveys are the last thing we take too seriously :).

Point taken and there is no doubt about that.

Quite Possible. A rare sight in Pune where wider roads appear chocked whereas the widest of roads in Bangalore (and one ways too) gets chocked at peak hours, pretty badly.

True that but look at the Rants thread and you know what we are all begging for since years and things never improve.

Always the case, hope this helps:



Again, appearance is fine but again if one does the math, eventually Bangalore's Network of roads which is on the higher side still makes the traffic density lesser opposed to other contenders even if it stands 2nd in terms of Vehicular population.

Secondly, we still don't know from this report as to what constitutes the City "Road Network" - Internal City Roads alone, Outer Ring Roads and Bypasses, City Limits only or surrounding villages and Mini-Corporations etc.

Of course, Population Density - Vertical Vs Horizonal density can also be a significant factor that can change the Density per Km as we know how many cars enter/exit an Apartment complex than a Housing Lay-out with Bungalows.

In the city of Kolkata, only 6% of the total area is used for vehicular transportation. The vehicle density is therefore higher in this city comparing Bangalore. However, if we consider number of vehicles, Kolkata comes much later than Bangalore. Following table shows the number of vehicles in different Indian cities (source).

These reports do not suggest for what area the numbers true. For example the Mumbai technically would be just the Mumbai municipal limits. But it has vehicles pouring in and out from the satellite cities Navi Mumbai, Panvel, Thane, Vasai Vihar, Mira/Bhayandar, Kalyan/Dombivili and even Pune. I wonder what would be the total of the car ownership figure in the MMR. Most of these stats do not mention if its for the Mumbai municipal limits or for the MMR.

Another graphical representation:

No offence to you too but I believe I have to disagree with you with some of your observations.

I have driven extensively in Delhi (born and brought up there). Moved to Pune in 2013. Have driven extensively in Bangalore (In Laws place). Drive very often to Mumbai on work and leisure.


Here are my observations. No doubt best behaved traffic on road is in Mumbai. Most unruly is Delhi in the sense that they are generally aggressive while driving although matters are helped by much better infrastructure in Delhi.
If Mumbai is replaced with Delhi, it will be horror on the roads. You never know who will take out a gun from his pocket in Delhi ready to shoot you over a disagreement.

But the sheer amount of disregard to traffic rules that I get to see in Pune day in Day out does not cease to amaze me.

Not just interior roads, but even the main roads bang in the middle of the city with traffic police manning the signals does not deter people from jumping lights, traveling wrong side etc. There is at least a semblance of orderliness in Delhi traffic that way. Of course need to agree that road network in Pune is also not comparable with Delhi. Dividers begin and end randomly and even the widest most busy roads have openings in the dividers made randomly which does in a way affect the movement of traffic too.

Wide roads in Pune? I am yet find them in three years of having moved here.

Actually Bangalore has more number of cars as well as total vehicles than Mumbai. Bangalore has infact the second highest number of cars as well as vehicles in India (after Delhi).

Mumbai has broader roads, but it is in the end a city that extends linearly. Whereas cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Pune etc can expand on all directions thereby dispersing population as well as traffic to all directions.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...-combined.html

The above thread has details on the number of cars in each of the major cities.

Fair enough, but I am still skeptical about the stats for Mumbai. Like a friend mentioned above in one of the posts, no one knows if only MCGM limits or the whole Mumbai metropolitan region was taken into consideration for Mumbai. Looking at the stats of 2012, I am quite sure they considered only the MCGM for Mumbai. It's next to impossible for me to accept that Pune has more number of cars compared to Mumbai, either in the past or today.

wrt to the link you provided, my two cents --

Personally when I say Mumbai , I see it from Panvel to Virar and Colaba to Bhiwandi/Badlapur. Whole of Mumbai megapolis comprises many municipal corporations but in case of Bangalore it's easy - just one BBMP. So , it could be possible that they compared MCGM vs BBMP in which case, there is no surprise Bangalore leads Bombay. But I seriously doubt if the stats still hold good if they do a MMR vs BBMP comparison. Let alone BBMP, even if they get Ramnagar, Kanakpura, Hoskote,Doddaballapur in picture, I doubt it could surpass MMR. I would be convinced with these reports only when they clearly define the limits of major metropolitan cities.

To cite another example, Pune's Municipal corporation i.e PMC limits was recently increased after addition of fringe villages and the media kept on saying PMC area is the biggest in the state today surpassing Mumbai. It was true, but a layman would take it as " Pune is bigger than Mumbai ". Some of my friends who are new to Pune/Mumbai region asked me if Pune is indeed bigger area wise compared to Mumbai ? I cleared it to them, it's not a comparison between the metropolis limits, just some old corporation limits. If Pune ( Pune+PCMC) is compared with whole of MMR,Mumbai then "Pune" would be just half the size of "Mumbai".

You are right with Mumbai being a linear city, but I don't agree that Pune has an equal scope to expand in all directions like Bangalore or Delhi. Pune is surrounded by hills on 3 sides, only scope is on Nagar highway or towards Solapur highway. :OT But that's the very reason I love Pune -- hills everywhere !