If you are a citizen of Mumbai or have visited this city recently, whichever way you look while taking any road, you will for sure be greeted with a “Your City Is Being Upgraded” message. Roads in the entire city are either dug up or its lanes eaten by barricades for the Metro work. No wonder then, the financial capital of India has earned itself the reputation of being the worst city to drive in the World.
The study, 2019 Driving Cities Index, was conducted by European car parts retailer Mister Auto, a part of the Peugeot Group. Among the 100 cities that the study focused on, Mumbai stands at the 100th position and Kolkata stands at 98th position on the list. While the study was being conducted, aspects which were considered as those impacting the driving conditions include, infrastructure, Safety and Costs, which were then broken down into 15 sub-categories. While Mumbai ranked last, a similar port city, Karachi in Pakistan fared better at the 96th position. Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia took the 99th place while Lagos in Nigeria was one place above Kolkata at 97th.
The Canadian city of Calgary was declared as the best city for driving considering low congestion, fatalities and affordability. Dubai entered the list in second, Ottawa, Canada took third, while Bern in Switzerland and El Paso in Texas completed the Top 5 list. The Japanese city of Osaka has been ranked as the best city to experience the least incidents involving road rage.
Most Indian cities have been experiencing a huge increase in the number of vehicles, while the infrastructure has failed to keep up. To make matters worse, existing public transport options are being used at their full capacity and for being the second-most populous country in the World, the lack of planning in the public transport sector and numerous delays are now posing a problem, where the infrastructure is always a decade behind the needs of an exploding population.