What Might Accidents On Mumbai-Pune Expressway Have To Do With Real Estate?

The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is India's first six-lane road. The expressway is a major factor behind the rise in the price of real estate in Pune. But, it is one of the most accident-prone roads in India. The expressway is often called the “death trap”. Between January 2006 and August 2014, 14,186 accidents happened on the Mumbai-Pune expressway, according to the State Highway Police.

On Sunday, two people were killed in a landslide on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Many point out that human error is often the cause of accidents on this expressway. Of course, there is often an element of human error in road accidents. But, if this is the primary reason why road accidents happen, the accident rate on some roads would not be incomparably higher than the accident rate on other roads.

Traffic congestion is one of the major reasons why the Mumbai-Pune expressway is accident-prone. After the landslide, the police had to redirect some of the traffic through the old Mumbai-Pune highway to ease congestion.

Though people tend not to consider traffic congestion as a life-and-death matter, this is not true of scholars who study traffic congestion. Alan Arthur Walters, a British economist, once remarked that “traffic congestion is the plague of our century”.  He was not exaggerating. His intimate knowledge of facts allowed him to see what others did not.

Traffic congestion, fundamentally, is the result of too many vehicles consuming expensive real estate. This is not inevitable, as many believe. But, as our major roads were always congested, we assume that there is no way of getting around it. Yet, congestion does not happen in all cases where many people compete for limited space.

Bowling alleys, for example, charge people in peak hours to ease congestion. The restaurants we frequent are rarely congested to the point that we go without a meal or wait too long. Owners realize that the price customers pay for their services is partly for expensive real estate. So, they factor in the supply and demand of real estate while pricing their services. So, restaurants, bowling alleys and other private spaces are not excessively congested, but roads and highways are.

There are many ways in which government can more optimally allocate real estate. One solution, needless to mention, is to build more roads. This is necessary, but not sufficient because the number of potential vehicle owners is higher than we imagine. A common proposal is to ask passengers to stagger their work hours. But, if restaurants ask us to stagger our meal times to ease congestion, we would find it ridiculous, and respond in kind.

A more optimal solution is to charge people to drive the roads. This might be controversial, but almost everywhere else, we pay to consume real estate. Why should roads and highways be any different?

On the Mumbai-Pune expressway, much of what is attributed to human error has to do with traffic congestion and poorly maintained roads too. According to some estimates, 44% of the drivers admit that traffic congestion is a leading cause of stress. Stress may lead to reckless driving.

Parked vehicles on and off the road are a major cause of accidents on the Mumbai-Pune highway, and this is attributed to human error. But, a parked car consumes about 14 square meter of space. This is not human error, but sub-optimal consumption of real estate. Roads and highways consume expensive real estate, and ought to be allocated more efficiently.