Low carbon development of urban transport system through mass transit system : a case of Hyderabad city

Abstract

With rapid urbanization and economic growth, motorisation levels have increased substantially in most cities of the world. With increasing affordability, the private ownerships of modes have also increased. Consequentially, the negative effects are seen as heavy congestion, high pollution and severe degradation of the living quality. Public transport is viewed as a saviour to the many urban transport problems. This study dwells upon low carbon development using mass transit system for a city of Hyderabad. The main objectives of the study are confined to identify the emission to be reduced. In order to reduce the carbon emissions from transportation, the trips generated by the individual use modes should be reduced which will result in reduction in traffic congestion of the urban transport and also helps in reducing the pollution levels of the city. And the mainly private mode users and IPT users are tried to shift to proposed Metro rail. By doing this the emissions from private and IPT modes can be cut down. For doing this study, the corridor between the cyber towers intersection and Mythrivanam intersection in the city of Hyderabad is taken as the study area. Metro has already been approved and it is now in construction phase in this corridor. The study draws the comparisons between the business-as-usual scenario and the other scenario with the metro in the study area, which concludes that drastic change in the pollution load in the scenario 2. First the emissions in the business as usual scenario had been calculated for the years 2021, 2031 and 2041. Later, the numbers of vehicles to be shifted to Metro rail are identified and accordingly emissions in this scenario are calculated for the years 2021, 2031 and 2041. Main findings show that if the metro rail is introduced in the study area, nearly 78% of the carbon emission can be reduced. In other words, approximately 8 tonnes of carbon equivalent of emissions are reduced depicting huge benefits. The potential of the carbon emission reduction is also studied. It is found that could be reduced by enforcing Metro Rail.