Some people think that increasing the price of petrol will discourage people from using private transport. However, I totally disagree with this view because by Increasing the cost of petrol, the people who earn their income through transportation as well as the low-income earners who do not have public transport across their homes will suffer a lot. Therefore, some other steps can be taken to reduce traffic congestion and pollution, such as promoting and advertising electric and hybrid cars all well as expanding and increasing the number of public buses and trains.
Firstly, the rise in petrol price is not an effective way of reducing the traffic and pollution because drivers who only rely for their income on driving vehicles for taxi and transporting other materials will suffer the most. Other than that, people who do not have access to their homes through public transport will be the preys of this policy because for these people the use of their private cars will be unavoidable. For instance, in Pakistan, the price of petrol is 358 PKr Per liter, which is the highest among all the Asian countries, but still the use of private cars never declined and remained maintain for the last two years.
Furthermore, there are some steps, which can easily be followed in order to minimise the traffic congestion and pollution, which is due to the high amount of private transport. The first and foremost solution is to expand public transport by adding new buses and railway lines as well as reducing the ticket prices. Secondly, introducing environmentally-friendly cars for public transport, such as hybrid and electric cars (EVs). For example, India introduces a scheme in which there will be only electric cars on the road, in order to reduce pollution.
In conclusion, increasing the price of petrol is an ineffective way of decreasing pollution and traffic congestion. Instead, it can be easily minimises through improving and enhancing public transport and introduction of electric cars.