Sustainable urban transportation: impact of CO<SUB align=right>2 mitigation strategies on local pollutants

Abstract

This paper assesses CO2 mitigation strategies in Delhi and Mumbai against the dynamics of local pollutants. After testing against techno-economic feasibility, compressed natural gas (CNG) technology, four-stroke two-wheelers and battery-operated vehicles (BOV) were selected as candidate options for Mumbai and Delhi. Multiple constrained optimisation for finding out the optimal mix of vehicles to meet the travel demand under the business-as-usual scenario for the period of CO2 mitigation targets of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25% resulted in reduced stock of diesel and petrol vehicles, with the reduction spanning over different points of the above time period. In the case of Mumbai, battery-operated three-wheelers dominated the vehicular mix, with the share of CNG vehicles remaining at a standard level. CO2 reduction targets did not influence the CNG option significantly. CO2 mitigation influenced the dynamics of local pollutants considerably in both Delhi and Mumbai. In Delhi, TSP and SOx reduction levels against the CO2 mitigation target were found to be significant. In Mumbai, the percentage reduction in local pollution (TSP in particular) was higher than the target CO2 reduction. Local pollutants other than TSP and SOx showed an increasing trend against the CO2 mitigation strategies in Delhi. In the case of Mumbai, all non-target pollutants showed a falling trend against the CO2 mitigation strategies, though insignificantly for pollutants other than TSP and SOx.