Traffic problems rising with number of vehicles

About 100,000 vehicles are registered in a year in Lahore

LAHORE: As many as 100,000 vehicles are registered in a year in Lahore while there are only a few hundred in other cities. Due to the practice of vehicle registration from the provincial capital, traffic problems have been worsening in the city day by day.

As per the record collected by the Motor Registration Authority of the Excise and Taxation Department, there are 6.265 million vehicles in Lahore of which the number of motorcycles is on top of the list at 4.298 million. Other vehicles include 1.431 million cars, 58,167 buses, 72,085 pickup trucks, 215,206 rickshaws, 27,507 cabs, 92,962 trucks, 57,494 tractors, 3,018 ambulances, 6,474 double cabin vans and 2,819 cranes. A total of 19.655 million vehicles are registered in Punjab.

Despite wide roads in Lahore, traffic jams have become a routine problem. While most of the city's routes are signal-free, travel time of minutes has turned into hours and the biggest reason for the situation is a violation of traffic laws.

Despite hundreds of daily e-challans with the help of security cameras, traffic wardens have failed to control the traffic.  Moreover, increased vehicle registration has worsened the situation.

Doctors’ protests cause traffic jam in city

Owners of cars, trucks, buses, vans, rickshaws, as well as motorcycles, want to register their vehicles in Lahore.  Apart from the Lahoris, a large number of people from other cities also register their vehicles in the provincial capital.



One of the reasons for registering vehicles in Lahore is that their sale and purchase can be carried out conveniently. The chances of fraud are also reduced as verification of vehicles registered in Lahore can be done in a few minutes.

The second reason is that when vehicles registered in other cities enter Lahore, they are subjected to severe scrutiny at police posts and by traffic wardens.

‘Poor road engineering behind traffic congestion, accidents’

When Motor Registration Authority Director Rana Qamarul Hassan Sajid was approached, he said the market value of cars registered in Lahore is higher than any other city of the province. This is why not only the citizens of the provincial capital but those of other cities also register their vehicles in Lahore as they face less trouble in solving any problem related to security or other issues.

Along with this, Lahore has the largest markets for the sale of automobiles, including Jail Road, Samanabad, Johar Town, Defence, Gulshan Ravi, Iqbal Town and other places where the purchase of vehicles is completed in an hour and a half.

The head offices of banks and car financing and leasing companies are also in Lahore. Thus when people from other cities come to buy cars on lease, they register them in Lahore and also get their documentation done here.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2020.