Gradual sustainability approach for urban transport through subtle measures

Capacity enhancement and demand reduction are the two most common approaches considered to deal with increased congestion in urban areas. The first approach involves construction of various infrastructure for providing increased capacity for motorized vehicles, whereas the second approach includes restricting movement of road users from congested area(s). Experiences from across the world have demonstrated that both the approaches have failed to resolve the problem of congestion. The present study has been carried out to assess traffic characteristics around five metro (rail) station areas in New Delhi, India, to examine the effect of subtle changes towards improvement for all road users. The impact of alternate traffic circulation plans, based on various traffic management strategies around these metro stations, has been compared using microscopic traffic simulation. The study has clearly demonstrated that parking related policies (including segregated parking lanes for cycle rickshaws and electric-rickshaws) can result in improvement in vehicular speed by 2 to 6 km/h in the influence zone of the selected metro stations for all categories of motorized vehicles. This is expected to result in total daily savings of 593 litres of petrol, 103 litres diesel and 643 kg CNG, and total CO(2)e (equivalent) reduction of 3.5 tonne/day in all the five metro stations. It is evident that the sustainable scenarios (viz. segregation/shifting of on-street parking, signal design, etc.) or similar to those that have been suggested, would result in significant reduction in fuel consumption and corresponding CO(2)e (equivalent) emissions. Implementing agencies can choose the scenario best suited to them, among the given options.