Consideration of Health Impacts in Transport Demand Modelling and Management

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Urbanization leads to motorised transport in both, developed and developing countries. Particularly, in developing countries motorised transport has become primarily cause of negative health impacts such as air pollution, noise pollution, traffic accidents etc. Several studies illustrate that private vehicle use causes negative health impacts while public transport use has less negative health impacts and active transport use even supports human health. Therefore, influencing mode choice behaviour plays a pivotal role to change health impacts of transport. To pursue this objective, this study is carried out in two phases. In the first phase, a state-of-the-art mode choice model is developed, which analyses the change of mode choice behaviour. In the second phase, consideration of health impacts in transport demand management aims at influencing mode choice behaviour of travellers. There are several studies on developing mode choice models which are based on an analysis of mode choice behaviour. However, there is a lack of research which considers health impact awareness as an influencing factor in the mode choice model. Filling this gap, this study reviews the state of development in transport demand modelling, then proposing a model development process. Applying this process, a transport mode choice model with consideration of health impact awareness is developed. Experience from developed countries such as European countries, the United States of America, Australia, Singapore and other countries illustrates that transport demand management is effective in changing traveller’s behaviour. The change of mode choice behaviour has helped to reduce negative health impacts of transport in developed countries, already. Following the experience of developed countries, the state of development in transport demand management with consideration of health impacts is reviewed. From that, the lists of transport demand management measures are collected. Finally, the German method to develop transport demand management strategies is explained. The newly developed mode choice model is applied for the case study of Hanoi, Vietnam. For this city, the traffic situation, the transport planning strategies and the health impact problems are explained. The results of the model application confirm that mode choice behaviour of travellers is affected by seven explanatory variables and five latent variables. It is demonstrated that health impact awareness influences mode choice behaviour significantly. Corresponding to the identified health problems, transport demand management measures are selected. These measures were combined to strategies for the case of Hanoi, following the German method to develop transport demand management strategies. Based on results from the mode choice model, this study finally simulates the change of mode choice behaviour in some scenarios of transport demand management measures and strategies, thereby, demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach. In summary, this study enriches research on health impacts of transport in developing countries. The results show that novel factor health impact awareness is a significant influence on mode choice behaviour. The results also reveal that transport demand management is feasible to be applied for the case study of developing countries. The implementation of transport demand management is effective to reduce negative health impacts from transport and to support human health.