Traffic Congestion: Top Cop Hints at Odd-even Policy and Carpooling in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: City Police Commissioner K. Sreenivasa Reddy said that in an attempt to ease traffic congestion, the police would explore the option of implementing the odd-even policy on some roads and carpooling, which has been a big success in Mumbai and Delhi.

Under this, vehicles with registration numbers ending with even digits (0,2,4,6,8) are allowed to ply on the roads on even dates. On the other days, vehicles with plates ending in the odd number (1,3,5,7,9)

Recalling his days as the DCP (Traffic) two decades back, Reddy said that they had at that point observed that congestion was mostly caused by slow-moving vehicles. The plans that they had made were, however, not successful.

With a sharp growth in vehicle population in the city as many people prefer their vehicles for safety reasons, the roads are getting more congested. This year saw an additional 16,000 vehicles plying on the city roads.

For some reason, Hyderabad has still not adopted carpooling.

"We appeal to the citizens to think of the many benefits it brings along. We are also planning to explore the odd-even process for some city roads," he added.

Though such decisions might cause some inconvenience to the citizens, they will go ahead with their proposals after duly consulting all stakeholders, he added.

- 16,150 new vehicles were added to the city in 2023.

- Vehicle population stood at 83.5 lakh on October 31, 2023

- It was 42.2 lakh in 2014