NI Bureau
(pic: AI generated) Delhi, 12 April 2025
Each day, Delhi NCR roads narrate a tale of jams, angst, and retardation. Between the early morning commute and the late-night drives home, the city’s principal arterial roads continue to be jammed with slow-moving vehicles. With traffic growing year by year, a swelling controversy has unfolded: Are mobile app-based taxi services responsible, or is it really the upsurge in private car usage?
The fast-paced urbanization of Delhi NCR has also brought with it a huge rise in the number of vehicles on its roads. With growing job opportunities in Gurugram, Noida, and Greater Noida, daily commuting has become a multifaceted challenge. In reaction, people have resorted to both personal cars and ride-hailing services such as Ola, Uber, and others. Each of these modes, however, has its own challenges in the already congested urban infrastructure.
Over the last few years, mobile cab services have changed the way people travel. With a few taps on an iPhone, a car turns up at the doorstep, ready to take passengers away to any location. This is convenient but at a price. App cabs are not point-to-point cars like personal vehicles; they drive for most of the day between pickups, waiting in traffic, or waiting in areas of high demand like malls, airports, and metro stations. This movement without passengers all day is a major cause of road congestion, particularly during rush hours.
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Furthermore, many app cab drivers converge in the same high-traffic areas where demand is most concentrated, causing local bottlenecks. With dynamic pricing and surge-based incentives, drivers tend to cluster around zones with higher fare potential, unintentionally contributing to traffic pileups. While these services provide flexibility and income for thousands of drivers, their cumulative effect on traffic volume is increasingly visible.
Conversely, the increase in private vehicles has been constant. With growing incomes and increased access to auto loans, homes throughout the region own two and sometimes three vehicles. It is not unusual nowadays for a household of four to have two or even three vehicles parked outside the home. In areas like South Delhi, Dwarka, Noida Extension, and Sectors 50-70 of Gurugram, owing to lack of coverage of last-mile public transportation, owning a car is considered a basic necessity and not an indulgence.
Private cars, though utilized less often during the day than cabs, also play a big role in traffic congestion during morning and evening peak hours. Most private car users travel alone or with one companion, resulting in wasteful occupation of road space. Parking on already congested roads, illegal encroachment, and lack of separate lanes for various categories of vehicles also aggravate the situation.
Unsync between mobility requirements and urban planning is another important cause. The urban sprawl in Delhi NCR has eclipsed the building of infrastructure. Flyovers and expressways are being built but benefit is wiped out within a matter of months with increasing number of vehicles on roads. Designs on roads are never considering how much mixed traffic will be driving down the street — a mixture of cars, cabs, autos, scooters, two-wheelers, and delivery cars — all struggling to find road space.
Public transportation, although present, remains underutilized in many sectors. Metro connectivity has improved across the region, but access to stations and lack of comfortable last-mile solutions continue to push people toward private options. Buses are overcrowded, infrequent, or completely absent in several residential pockets, leaving commuters with few choices beyond personal or app-based vehicles.
The question of accountability—whether app cabs or private cars are the bigger contributor to congestion—does not have a clear answer. Both have expanded rapidly without corresponding regulations or infrastructure adjustments. While private car ownership reflects lifestyle and necessity, app cabs reflect changing work patterns, such as flexible hours and shared economy preferences.
Mobility specialists opine that rather than debating which type of vehicle is worse, the real problem is unsustainable transportation expansion without a master plan. A policy shift to ride-sharing incentives, congestion levies in densely populated areas, tighter licensing for commercial taxis, better parking regulation, and investment in multimodal public transport may ease the burden.
As Delhi NCR prepares for further growth, the area has a vital decision to make: evolve with more intelligent transport approaches or keep getting stuck in a cycle of increasing congestion. Meanwhile, whether traveling in a car or cab, every traveler has the same experience — jammed on roads, waiting for relief to finally dawn.
