Urban transport emissions under current and alternative mitigation policy scenarios for the Mumbai Metropolitan region

Abstract

This paper first estimates the emission inventory for Mumbai Metropolitan Region's (MMR) urban transport under business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. The inventory includes five major pollutants, viz. CO2, CO, NOx, PM, and HC. We used a bottom-up approach based on a traditional four-step travel demand model for the base year (2005) and horizon years (2031 & 2050) to obtain vehicle kilometer traveled (VKT) and vehicular emission factors adopted from the existing literature. The paper then proposes five emission mitigation scenarios for horizon years, including improvement of public transit infrastructure, increase in vehicle operating costs and inclusion of electric vehicles (EVs), to evaluate their impact on the urban transport of MMR. A combination of multiple policies- including the combined effect of land use, increase in vehicle operating cost and transit infrastructure- will reduce private vehicle mode share, VKT, and CO2 emission by ∼21%, ∼19%, and ∼4% compared to the BAU scenario in 2050.