Co-benefits of low carbon passenger transport actions in Indian cities: Case study of Ahmedabad

Rising population, income and urbanization are increasing urban passenger transport demand in India. Energy and emissions intensities associated with conventional transport are no longer sustainable vis-a-vis energy security, air quality and climate change. Cities are seeking transport roadmaps that jointly mitigate these risks. Roadmaps vary across cities, but approach to delineate actions is common: (i) ‘representative vision’ that articulates long-term goals, (ii) methods for comparative scenarios assessment, and (iii) quantification of co-benefits to prioritize actions. This paper illustrates application of quantitative modeling to assess development and environmental co-benefits for Ahmedabad city. The paper constructs two transport scenarios spanning till 2035. The bifurcating themes are: (i) Business-as-Usual (BAU) and Low Carbon Scenario (LCS). The quantitative assessment using Extended Snapshot (ExSS) Model shows that transport activity shall result in four-fold increase in energy demand under BAU from 2010 to 2035. Three key contributors to CO₂ mitigation under LCS in merit order are: (i) fuel switch, including decarbonized electricity, (ii) modal shift, and (iii) substitution of travel demand. Scenarios analysis shows that LCS improves energy security by reducing oil demand and also delivers air quality co-benefits – reducing 74% NOx and 83% PM_2.5 from the passenger transport sector compared to BAU in 2035. Finally, the paper argues that cities in developing countries can leverage carbon finance to develop sustainable and low carbon mobility plans that prevent adverse infrastructure and behavioral lock-ins and prompt low carbon development.     

Key factors influencing the global passenger transport dynamics using the AIM/transport model

A bottom-up passenger transport model named AIM (Asia-pacific Integrated Model)/Transport model is developed by incorporating behavioral parameters and transportation technological details. This model is based on discrete based choice modelling covering 17 global regions soft-linked with the AIM/CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) model. In this paper, the model is used to assess the impact of various factors like travel time, energy efficiency improvement, load factor, mode preference along with environmental awareness factors on transport demand, energy and emissions. The modelling assessment results show that travel speed and land-use patterns have significant impact on the travel demand. High occupancy rate and shift towards the mass-transit system result in energy and emissions reduction. Implementation of carbon tax aligned with the two-degree target results in a 22% cumulative emission reduction from 2005 to 2100 relative to the baseline case. However, the reduction potential can be increased to 42% by combining behavioral and technology related mitigation options like mass-transit system speed improvement, transit oriented development, efficiency improvement, preference towards eco-friendly technologies and high vehicle occupancy.     

A framework to evaluate policy options for supporting electric vehicles in urban freight transport

Electric vehicles (EVs) are considered as a feasible alternative to traditional vehicles. Few studies have addressed the impacts of policies supporting EVs in urban freight transport. To cast light on this topic, we established a framework combining an optimization model with economic analysis to determine the optimal behavior of an individual delivery service provider company and social impacts (e.g., externalities and welfare) in response to policies designed to support EVs, such as purchase subsidy, limited access (zone fee) to congestion/low-emission zones with exemptions for EVs, and vehicle taxes with exemptions for EVs. Numerical experiments showed that the zone fee can increase the company’s total logistics costs but improve the social welfare. It greatly reduced the external cost inside the congestion/low-emission zone with a high population, dense pollution, and heavy traffic. The vehicle taxes and subsidy were found to have the same influence on the company and society, although they have different effects with low tax/subsidy rates because their different effects on vehicle routing plans. Finally, we performed a sensitivity analysis. Local factors at the company and city levels (e.g., types of vehicle and transport network) are also important to designing efficient policies for urban logistics that support EVs.     

Land rents and transport improvements: Some urban parables

Define a transportation improvement's impact zone as the area within which resident households and business firms regularly utilize the improvement. Three simple parables suggest that the increases in impact-zone land rents that usually accompany improvements do not accurately reflect its benefits. Seemingly modest variations in the demand and supply relationships that characterize impact-zone residents can have major effects on the relationship between benefits received and the land-rent changes that are measured. Generally speaking, increases in impact-zone land rents substantially understate benefits unless these benefits are small either absolutely (because the improvement is modest) or relatively (because the impact zone is part of a homogeneous area of much larger size).     

European freight transport and the environment: empirical applications and scenarios

Environmental issues have received a prominent place in transport policies of most European countries. The coordination of such policies however, is fraught with many difficulties. The increasing freight flows after the European integration are a source of concern, but have not yet led to straightforward and effective environmental strategies.The paper focuses on the Trans Alpine freight transport systems in the light of the future integration of single national transport systems into the European transport network. The environmental, social and institutional peculiarities of this ‘region’ have favoured—in the past—the development of strong nationally-oriented policies, partly in contrast with the goals promoted by the European Union. The present analysis aims to highlight opportunities, and limits inherent, in the implementation of various infrastructure projects oriented towards a drastic change of the Alpine transport systems structure. The Alpine countries, viz. Austria and Switzerland, play a central role in the promotion of environmental benign modes of transport of goods, with a clear focus on rail. The route choice and modal split of freight flows in Europe are taking place simultaneously. In this paper the results of European freight flow models (based on logit analysis and neural networks) will be presented. An important exercise is then to assess the consequences of various types of eco-taxes on road transport in Europe. In this context, several policy scenarios will be dealt with.     

Urban public transport in Europe: Technology diffusion and market organisation

Technological change and incremental technology, at various levels, are believed to have played an important role in the success of urban public transport in Europe. In this paper, a historical overview of the evolution of different transport modes across different European cities is presented. Our major concern is with the processes of diffusion of urban transport modes in European cities and, in particular, with the factors, mainly of an economic nature, that may explain their rates of adoption across Europe. Among these factors, special attention is given to the role played by the dimension and organisation of public transport markets in the rates of adoption of different public transport modes. The main conclusion of the paper is that the success of the introduction of a new transport mode appeared to be mainly related to its ability to provide cheaper and more reliable transport services compared with previous transport modes, and that, in the case of the electric tram, this was achieved by transforming of the structure of the market relating to this urban transport mode into monopolies.     

The impact of alternative routeing and packaging scenarios on carbon and sulphate emissions in international wine distribution

There is a large body of research related to carbon footprint reduction in supply chains and logistics from a wide range of sectors; however the decarbonisation of freight transport is mostly explored from a single mode perspective and at a domestic/regional level. This paper takes into account a range of alternative transport modes, routes and methods with particular reference to UK wine imports from two regions: northern Italy and Southeast Australia. The research examines supply chain structures, costs and the environmental impact of international wine distribution to the UK. A number of options are evaluated to calculate the carbon footprint and sulphate emissions of alternative route, mode, method of carriage, and packaging combinations. The estimation of CO₂e emissions incorporates three main elements - cargo mass, distance and method of carriage; sulphate emissions are derived from actual ship routes, engine power and operational speeds. The bottling of wine either at source or close to destination is also taken into consideration. The key findings are: there are major differences between the environmental footprint of different routeing and packaging scenarios; the international shipping leg almost always has a much larger footprint than inland transport within the UK except in the hypothetical case of the rail shipments from Italy using flexitanks. With reference to sulphate, the lowest cost scenario among the sea maximizing options is also the sulphate minimising solution.     

Environmental impacts of transformative land use and transport developments in the Greater Beijing Region: Insights from a new dynamic spatial equilibrium model

This paper reports the insights into environmental impacts of the ongoing transformative land use and transport developments in Greater Beijing, from a new suite of dynamic land use, spatial equilibrium and strategic transport models that is calibrated for medium to long term land use and transport predictions. The model tests are focused on urban passenger travel demand and associated emissions within the municipality of Beijing, accounting for Beijing’s land use and transport interactions with Tianjin, Hebei and beyond. The findings suggests that background trends of urbanization, economic growth and income rises will continue to be very powerful drivers for urban passenger travel demand across all main modes of transport beyond 2030. In order to achieve the dual policy aims for a moderately affluent and equitable nation and reducing the absolute levels of urban transport emissions by 2030, road charging and careful micro-level coordination between land use, built form and public transport provision may need to be considered together for policy implementation in the near future.     

Assessing the social costs of urban transport infrastructure options in low and middle income countries

ABSTRACT

This paper develops cost models for urban transport infrastructure options in situations where motorcycles and various forms of taxis are important modes of transport. The total social costs (TSCs) of conventional bus, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Monorail, Metro (Elevated Rail), car, motorcycle, Taxi and Uber are calculated for an urban corridor covering operator, user and external costs. Based on the parameters for a 7?km corridor in Hanoi, Vietnam, the results show the lowest average social cost (ASC) transport modes for different ranges of demand. Motorcycle might be the best option at low demand levels while conventional bus has advantages with low-medium demand. At medium demand levels, bus-based technologies and Monorail are competitive options while Metro, with a higher person capacity, is the best alternative at the highest demand levels. Compared to other modes, the ASCs of car and Taxi/Uber are greater because of high capital cost (related to vehicles) per passenger and low occupancy. Transport planners and decision makers in low and middle income countries (LMICs) can draw on the findings of this study. However, various limitations are identified and additional research is suggested.     

Impact of public transport and non-motorized transport infrastructure on travel mode shares,energy, emissions and safety: Case of Indian cities

Current modal share in Indian cities is in favor of non-motorized transport (NMT) and public transport (PT), however historical trends shows decline in its use. Existing NMT and PT infrastructure in Indian cities is of poor quality resulting in increasing risk from road traffic crashes to these users. It is therefore likely that the current NMT and PT users will shift to personal motorized vehicles (PMV) as and when they can afford it. Share of NMT and PT users can be retained and possibly increased if safe and convenient facilities for them are created. This shall also have impact on reducing environment impacts of transport system.We have studied travel behavior of three medium size cities – Udaipur, Rajkot and Vishakhapatnam. Later the impact of improving built environment and infrastructure on travel mode shares, fuel consumption, emission levels and traffic safety in Rajkot and Vishakhapatnam are analyzed. For the purpose three scenarios are developed – improving only NMT infrastructure, improving only bus infrastructure and improving both NMT and bus infrastructure.The study shows the strong role of NMT infrastructure in both cities despite geographical dissimilarities. The scenario analysis shows maximum reduction in CO₂ emissions is achieved when both PT and NMT infrastructure are improved. Improvement in safety indicator is highest in this scenario. Improving only PT infrastructure may have marginal effect on overall reduction of CO₂ emissions and adverse effects on traffic safety. NMT infrastructure is crucial for maintaining the travel mode shares in favor of PT and NMT in future.     

Development of a corrected average speed model for calculating carbon dioxide emissions per link unit on urban roads

The purpose of our study is to develop a “corrected average emission model,” i.e., an improved average speed model that accurately calculates CO₂ emissions on the road. When emissions from the central roads of a city are calculated, the existing average speed model only reflects the driving behavior of a vehicle that accelerates and decelerates due to signals and traffic. Therefore, we verified the accuracy of the average speed model, analyzed the causes of errors based on the instantaneous model utilizing second-by-second data from driving in a city center, and then developed a corrected model that can improve the accuracy. We collected GPS data from probe vehicles, and calculated and analyzed the average emissions and instantaneous emissions per link unit. Our results showed that the average speed model underestimated CO₂ emissions with an increase in acceleration and idle time for a speed range of 20 km/h and below, which is the speed range for traffic congestion. Based on these results, we analyzed the relationship between average emissions and instantaneous emissions according to the average speed per link unit, and we developed a model that performed better with an improved accuracy of calculated CO₂ emissions for 20 km/h and below.     

Free public transport: A socio-cognitive analysis

In this study, the modal shift potential of introducing a free alternative (free public transportation) and of changing the relative prices of transportation is examined. The influence of a cognitive analysis on the zero-price effect is also analyzed. The data used for the analysis stem from a stated preference survey with a sample of approximately 670 respondents that was conducted in Flanders, Belgium. The data are analyzed using a mixed logit model. The modeling results yield findings that confirm the existence of a zero-price effect in transport, which is in line with the literature. This zero-price effect is increased by the forced cognitive analysis for shopping trips, although not for work/school or recreational trips. The results also demonstrate the importance of the current mode choice in hypothetical mode choices and the importance of car availability. The influence of changing relative prices on the modal shift is found to be insignificant. This might be partially because the price differences were too small to matter. Hence, an increase in public transport use can be facilitated by the introduction of free public transport, particularly when individuals evaluate the different alternatives in a more cognitive manner. These findings should be useful to policy makers evaluating free public transport and considering how best to target and promote relevant policy.     

The built environment and travel behavior in urban China: A literature review

Interests in studying of the built environment impacts on travel behavior have proliferated from North America to other parts of the world including China. Until very recently, there has been very little research into travel behavior in China. However, during the last decade, there has been a fast growing interest in studying the built environment and travel behavior in Chinese cities, perhaps motivated by China’s unprecedented urbanization and rapid urban transport development. Case studies from China provide new insights into the impacts of built environment on travel behavior that can help to enrich existing scholarship. However, currently there is a generally poor understanding of the role played by Chinese research and how it has enriched the international literature. This paper aims to fill this gap by reviewing studies in and outside China by both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars. The focus is on the contribution of these studies to the international literature. We identify four areas of contribution: how the built environment has been developed and its implications for travel behavior; the importance of housing sources in defining residential built environment and explaining travel behavior; the unique Danwei (or work unit) perspective on jobs-housing relationships and commuting behavior; and the importance of neighborhood types in explaining travel behavior in Chinese cities. The findings from this review should be relevant for researchers interested in developing future studies that will further advance geographic knowledge of the built environment and travel behavior, specifically in China and with broader global contexts.     

Estimation of a route choice model for urban public transport using smart card data

This paper describes a logit model of route choice for urban public transport and explains how the archived data from a smart card-based fare payment system can be used for the choice set generation and model estimation. It demonstrates the feasibility and simplicity of applying a trip-chaining method to infer passenger journeys from smart card transactions data. Not only origins and destinations of passenger journeys can be inferred but also the interchanges between the segments of a linked journey can be recognised. The attributes of the corresponding routes, such as in-vehicle travel time, transfer walking time and to get from alighting stop to trip destination, the need to change, and the time headway of the first transportation line, can be determined by the combination of smart card data with other data sources, such as a street map and timetable. The smart card data represent a large volume of revealed preference data that allows travellers' behaviour to be modelled with higher accuracy than by using traditional survey data. A multinomial route choice model is proposed and estimated by the maximum likelihood method, using urban public transport in ?ilina, the Slovak Republic, as a case study     

Learning from Los Angeles: transport,urban form,and air quality

Los Angeles is well known around the world as an automobile-oriented low density community, yet recent transportation policies have emphasized greater capital investment in rail transportation than in highways, and recent policies have attempted to discourage automobile usage through transportation demand management. While these policies have accomplished small shifts toward public transport and somewhat lower dependence upon singly occupied automobilies for work commuting, the financial costs of these policy changes has been very large in relation to their benefits. Proper pricing of transportation alternatives, more creative use of new and emerging transportation technologies, and the provision of many more opportunities for simpler private sector transport services, would all appear to be more promising as cost-effective approaches to coping with congestion in Los Angeles than the current regional transportation policies.     

Modeling car-following behavior on urban expressways in Shanghai: A naturalistic driving study

Although car-following behavior is the core component of microscopic traffic simulation, intelligent transportation systems, and advanced driver assistance systems, the adequacy of the existing car-following models for Chinese drivers has not been investigated with real-world data yet. To address this gap, five representative car-following models were calibrated and evaluated for Shanghai drivers, using 2100 urban-expressway car-following periods extracted from the 161,055 km of driving data collected in the Shanghai Naturalistic Driving Study (SH-NDS). The models were calibrated for each of the 42 subject drivers, and their capabilities of predicting the drivers’ car-following behavior were evaluated.The results show that the intelligent driver model (IDM) has good transferability to model traffic situations not presented in calibration, and it performs best among the evaluated models. Compared to the Wiedemann 99 model used by VISSIM®, the IDM is easier to calibrate and demonstrates a better and more stable performance. These advantages justify its suitability for microscopic traffic simulation tools in Shanghai and likely in other regions of China. Additionally, considerable behavioral differences among different drivers were found, which demonstrates a need for archetypes of a variety of drivers to build a traffic mix in simulation. By comparing calibrated and observed values of the IDM parameters, this study found that (1) interpretable calibrated model parameters are linked with corresponding observable parameters in real world, but they are not necessarily numerically equivalent; and (2) parameters that can be measured in reality also need to be calibrated if better trajectory reproducing capability are to be achieved.     

A bi-objective bi-level signal control policy for transport of hazardous materials in urban road networks

A bi-objective bi-level signal control optimization for hazardous material (hazmat) transport is considered to assess trade-offs between travel cost and environment impacts such as public risk exposure. A least maxi-sum risk model with explicit signal delay is presented to determine generalized travel cost for hazmat carriers. Since the bi-level signal control problem is generally a non-convex program, a bundle method using generalized gradients is proposed. A bounding strategy is developed to stabilize solutions of the bi-level program and reduce relative gaps between iterations. Numerical comparisons are made with other risk-averse models. The results indicate that the proposed bi-objective bi-level model becomes even amiable to signal control policy makers since provides flexible solutions whilst is acceptable to carriers since takes account of travel delay at signal-controlled junctions. Moreover, the trade-offs between public risk and generalized travel costs are empirically investigated among different risk models with a variety of weights. As a result, the proposed model consistently exhibits highly considerable advantage on mitigation of public risk whilst incurred less cost loss as compared to other alternatives.     

国内外公路运输场站绿色低碳发展政策和技术应用现状分析

通过文献调研,采用纵向比较的方法,文章分析了我国与美国、欧盟、日本等发达国家及地区公路运输场站绿色低碳的发展政策和技术应用现状,并针对我国公路运输场站发展实际,提出了今后公路运输场站绿色低碳发展的几点建议。     

Environmentally appraising different pavement and construction scenarios: A comparative analysis for a typical local road

The aim of this work is to carry out a comparative analysis of environmental impacts for different scenarios of a typical local road. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the modeling tool used to quantify and characterize comparative environmental impacts. In carrying out this specific application of the LCA, different road construction techniques were considered with regards to the whole structure and compared in order to identify the best alternative in terms of environmental sustainability.So far, in fact, typical LCA frameworks of roads have focused on recycled materials for pavement layers only, thus neglecting study of the materials used in the embankment or in the subgrade. In this study, these materials were included too, in order to prove the environmental benefit of using a sustainable technique such as in situ stabilization of fine soils with lime (typically dumped clayey soils) in order to reduce the need for virgin material for embankment and subgrade construction.When using different percentages of recycled materials (such as reclaimed asphalt pavement – RAP) in the bituminous layer or in the foundation, the analysis of the functional unit studied shows a significant reduction of energy consumption and pollutant emissions mainly due to transportation of materials involved, in this way increasing the environmental performance of the road.Another important consideration is that the use of fine soils stabilized with lime “in situ”, instead of dumping it, not only is a good technical solution for improving soil mechanical properties, but it also produces a reduction of energy consumption and of pollutant emissions. It is noticeable that this technique results in a significant reduction of pollutant emissions due the transportation of involved materials, increasing the environmental performance of the road.     

Preparing highway emissions inventories for urban scale modeling: A case study in Philadelphia

Highway emissions represent a major source of many pollutants. Use of local data to model these emissions can have a large impact on the magnitude and distribution of emissions predicted and can significantly improve the accuracy of local scale air quality modeling assessments. This paper provides a comparison of top–down and bottom–up approaches for developing emission inventories for modeling in one urban area, Philadelphia, in calendar year 1999. A bottom–up approach relies on combining motor vehicle emission factors and vehicle activity data from a travel demand model estimated at the road link level to generate hourly emissions data. This approach can result in better estimates of levels and spatial distribution of on-road motor vehicle emissions than a top–down approach that relies on more aggregated information and default modeling inputs.