Delhi was in for a welcome change on the traffic front on Thursday. Despite closure of certain roads and carcades of visiting Games delegates, the expected traffic nightmare just failed to materialise.

In fact, compared to a regular working day, the roads were smooth and a bulk of traffic was conspicuous by its absence.

Much of the smooth ride was attributed to the fact that many Delhiites chose to stay home in anticipation of bad traffic. The rest, who had ventured out, reached their destination ahead of time.

“It was strange,” said Rajeev Shukla, a marketing executive. “I reach office in over an hour and today I left a bit early because of yesterday’s warning, but I reached in just 45 minutes,” said Shukla.

The Traffic Control Unit received only five calls of jam in place of the usual 50. “I don’t remember such a thing happening before,” said a policeman from the Traffic Control unit. “We did not tell people not to come out, we just said that there will be some minutes of stoppage when the delegates pass. But even so, many people did not go out today.”

Around evening, the control room was flooded with calls from people who wanted to know whether things will be the same way tomorrow.