Urban Air Pollution and Grinding Traffic: Are SUVs at Fault?

The larger problem of urban pollution may be solved if big SUVs are banned or made very expensive, says Partha Sen

The increase in the number of vehicles in urban India has caused traffic to grind to a halt and converted roads in big cities into parking lots.

(Photo: The Quint/Saumya Pankaj)

The problem of urban air pollution in India has reached crisis proportions. In India, unlike China, this is in spite of no significant industrialisation – the share of industry in GDP has remained constant for about three decades.

Thus the trade-off that China faced of getting people out of poverty versus clean air is, to a large extent, missing in India; all the poor air quality is driven by other considerations.

In addition to the poor air quality, the increase in the number of vehicles in urban India has also caused traffic to grind to a halt, and converted roads in big cities (including national highways) into parking lots.

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Below, I want to deal with the environmental and other consequences of an exponential growth in the number of vehicles in urban areas. I limit the discussion below to passenger cars, and use Delhi to illustrate the problem. In particular, I will hold the unfettered increase in big diesel cars, especially SUVs, primarily responsible for this mess.

Three observations are obvious:
(1) the car owners are responsible for the pollution and yet do not pay for these—polluting the air is free;

(2) large car owners while driving preempt the space for other cars on the road; and

(3) free parking on public roads is privatising the public space.

The relationship between emissions from vehicles and the resulting pollution (SO2, NOx and particulate matter) is well established — though these are location specific. The scientific relationships may not be exact, but the all the evidence points in the same direction.

The poor air quality in Delhi has three other major man-made contributors:
(1) dust from construction activity;
(2) emissions from coal-fired power stations; and
(3) burning of paddy residue in the neighbouring states. The worsening of air quality has been responsible for the increase in respiratory diseases and there has been a spike in deaths due to the same.

Also Read: Just Deny It: How Our Govt Tackles Effect of Air Pollution on Kids

No Government Initiative

The Government, both at the Centre and the state, have been very lax about doing anything concrete, or even collecting data seriously, on the problem. Earlier in 2017, the then Union Minister for Environment dismissed the causation that some foreign studies have tried to establish that the poor air quality is responsible for large number of premature deaths in India, adding for good measure that he had no faith in these studies and had faith only in the Indian armed forces!

It is, however, not just the current dispensation which chooses to ignore the pollution problem. Sheila Dikshit’s government was forced to implement the use of CNG for public transport by the courts. The current ruling party in Delhi is clueless about these issues — it is not even sure whether the “odd-even” experiment was a good thing or not.

Also Read: Deadly Cities: 81,000 Killed Because of Air Pollution in 2015

Improved Technology but Little Efficiency

The total pollution from vehicles is the contribution of each vehicle (ie the average) times the number of vehicles – the latter is referred to as "the scale". The former depends on the age structure (are older vehicles phased out?) and the technology embodied (eg diesel is more polluting than petrol, certainly in terms of particulate matter relevant for local pollution; or BS IV engines versus BS III).

Ultimately, there is an issue of efficiency from society’s point of view that is often ignored, namely how much pollution is generated to transport an individual between two points. On this score, big cars are worse unless they ferry more passengers consistent with their size. And big diesel cars are worse than petrol or CNG ones.

In Delhi, for instance, the increase in the number of vehicles has far outstripped any gain from improved technology in new cars — one report suggests a 25 percent increase in the number of vehicles in the last four years. In any case, improved technology does precious little when there is a reluctance to ban diesel and phase out old vehicles.

Private Use of Public Good

As the number of vehicles goes up, these jostle for the limited space on roads. The increase in the number of vehicles is unable to cope, even though there is a never-ending widening of roads, mostly at the expense of space for walking and cycling. A road is a public good, but often subject to congestion.

A public good is something that I can consume without affecting the consumption of others. A road has this feature until the traffic really builds up. In Delhi, most arterial roads are clogged because of too many private cars. Bigger cars and SUVs occupy more space. Diesel cars emit more pollutants and hence as traffic slows down, they pollute more. Even if this were not the case (say these were electric cars), they still occupy more space and slow down traffic, forcing the travelling public to inhale pollutants from other vehicles, eg two-wheelers.

So if we take a holistic view, SUVs pollute more and these slow down traffic. Thus an SUV owner, in trying to signal his/her “arrival”, causes a delay (literally) in the arrival at their respective destinations of numerous others.

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The upshot of the above analysis is that the lifestyle of the wealthy impacts directly on the health and general well-being of the less well-off. All big cities have been converted into large parking lots. This is privatisation of public spaces by the rich. In my neighborhood, in the evenings there are traffic jams around parks because the big cars have ferried the small children (of those who can afford these) to play there.

I want to clarify that this kind of conspicuous consumption is very different from, say, having a lunch at a five-star hotel or sending a child to do an undergraduate degree in the US—the latter category does not directly affect the rest of the population directly.

Higher Purchasing Power + Media = Conspicuous Consumption

Why is this not discussed more in the media? A cursory glance at the electronic media suggests a possible answer. Advertising of big cars (and other consumer durables) on television has led to aspirations becoming conditioned by the North American tastes. The problem is that in the past three decades, a (tiny) fraction of the population in India has become incredibly rich.

With purchasing power available, in the jargon of economics, notional demand has become an effective demand. Things become serious here—India cannot afford even a small share of its population, that has first world incomes (and more), to emulate North American lifestyles.

To hope for the media to highlight these issues and educate the general population is to live in a fool’s paradise. The TV channels do not allow you to register the readings on suspended particulate matter that they flash before they slip into a break.

Easy Solutions on Offer?

So what can be done? Big diesel cars have to be banned or made very expensive.

Who will gain from such a policy? The general public will, with improved air quality and traffic moving faster. Especially the poor, who do not use cars, or even two wheelers, and thus do not cause pollution; but still bear the brunt of the bad air-quality since they cannot take “evasive action”, ie, they cannot roll up their car windows or install air-purifiers.

Who will be hit? The polluters, the big car manufacturers, and the lending agencies (the NBFCs). Limiting purchase of big cars is not a problem if the government wants to do it. With Aadhaar available, it should be a breeze.

On environmental matters, as mentioned above, the executive has failed us repeatedly. It then falls upon the courts to lay down policy, something they are ill-prepared for. The courts could be seized of the problem, but often get the mix between carrots and sticks wrong.

For instance, the Supreme Court recently decided to ban SUVs in Delhi, because they are (disproportionately) more polluting. The then Attorney General of India told the Court that such a policy would affect foreign direct investment in India.

Instead of asking the Attorney General whether in his opinion India was a banana republic that could be kicked around as he had suggested, the Court changed its prescription to a one-time hike in the registration fees for such vehicles.

If the Attorney General were to be believed, then we would be saying goodbye to FDI. Even if this was true, and that SUVs cannot be touched, then, implicitly, we are saying that public health be damned—the government has come out on the side of the rich (and their conspicuous consumption) and the foreign companies whose investment we covet.

In the last week the government has expressed a desire to levy a cess to make luxury cars more expensive. This will not make a significant dent in the purchase of these cars.

From my perspective, we need to minimise the use of these cars and the free space occupied by these on the roads. I have no objection to someone buying these cars and parking these within the compounds of their houses. A one-time tax does not prevent the use of these vehicles after purchase—it is a “sunk cost”.

I wish to draw the readers’ attention to two points not discussed here. First, the diesel car manufacturers around the world have installed software to cheat on the measurement of actual emissions.

Given that this is what they were doing, one can only admire the cheek of one of their representatives who said on television that the emissions from diesel cars were cleaner than the air quality into which these emissions went!

The second point that I have stayed away from discussing is the optimal structure of urban transport, limiting myself to pointing out that no reasonable system can have any place for diesel cars, especially big ones.

(The author is a retired professor from the Delhi School of Economics. The views expressed are the author’s own and The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same)

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