Road Transport in Indian Cities: Energy – Environment Implications

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Abstract
The paper examines the general overview of problems associated with traffic growth and composition of traffic flow characteristics, the levels of mobility and constraints on mobility like traffic congestion and speed reduction on important arteries, variation in trip rate and trip length, modal distribution of passenger trips, in seventeen metropolitan cities in India. As the cities of different sizes have varied problems due to many factors, such as basic road system, transport modes operating, the nature and composition of the traffic, the seventeen cities are grouped into three categories on the basis of population size of the city – large (over 5 million), medium (2–4 million) and small (1–2 million) to examine the linkage between the size of the city and traffic and travel related parameters. Linear econometric relationships are established between travel demand parameters (volume of trips, trip length, vehicle population, passenger car units) and urban size and economic structure of the city. The paper considers only passenger modes of transport and does not include freight modes. Passenger travel demand is estimated for each city during 1990–91 (base year) and projected for 2000–01 under business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, by analyzing data on vehicle population, average distance travelled, and occupancy level. Next, data on travel demand and operating energy intensity are compiled for each city for estimating demand of petrol (motor spirit) and diesel oil for the two years – 1990–91 and 2000–01. Finally, the resultant emissions of TSP, SO2 CO, NOx, HC, Pb are estimated for the corresponding years using data on emission factors and fuel demand for the corresponding years. The paper suggests the desirable cost-effective solution (of how to move people with less vehicles using less energy and spewing out less pollution) could be achieved by increasing the share of public transport in large, medium and small size cities.

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