The new initiative Even-Odd car formula of Delhi government to control traffic and
air pollution is making rounds in the news now-a-days. I just thought of simple
math behind this.
We can easily conclude that this initiative will bring down car traffic by 50%.
But how? This small write up is to bring out simple logic behind this conclusion.
The formula states that all even number registered cars are allowed to commute on
roads on even numbered days (2nd, 4th, 6th etc… of a month) and odd numbered cars
catch up on odd numbered days. Ideally, this should mean - on an odd numbered day,
all odd numbered cars commute on roads and the next day, which is eventually an
even numbered day, all even numbered cars commute on roads.
What does it mean?
If I consider any two consecutive days, “all odd” plus “all even” result in
distribution of all cars in any two consecutive days. So it brings the day-average
traffic to half proportion.
