It is often argued that increasing the prices of petrol will reduce the number of vehicles on the road, thereby reducing traffic congestion and pollution. While there may be some merit to this viewpoint, I firmly disagree with this perspective, primarily because there are several underlying factors, such as inadequate public transport, that contribute to traffic jams and pollution.
The primary reason why I hold this view is that wealthier individuals may continue commuting from private vehicles, even if the prices are raised. This is largely because they can afford the expensive fossil fuel. Consequently, only small amount of vehicles will be reduced. A clear example of this can be seen in South Delhi, where even after the rule of odd and even implementation, there is no effect on reducing the congestion and pollution. This demonstrates that policymakers need to come up with better strategic solution.
Another compelling reason is that not having adequate public transport infrastructure. When a country lacks sufficient infrastructure, then people tend to use private vehicles. This in turn can lead to overcrowding in public transport leading to use private cars. For instance local train and metro in city like Mumbai is severely crowded by people causing issues to individual. Therefore government should construct more infrastructure in order to allow individuals to commute smoothly so that people can abandon their personal cars and commute by public transport.
In conclusion, I firmly believe that raising the fuel prices is not enough to reduce the congestion and pollution as wealthier people can afford higher prices, higher petrol price and may continue using it, and lack of adequate public transport is another factor that can be considered by the government