Provision of sustainable road transport infrastructure : A case study of urban corridor in Delhi

Abstract

Indian economy is rapidly growing and along with it the travel demand is also increasing exponentially. The number of motor vehicles in India which were around half a million in the year 1950 has now increased to more than 60 million. This increased motorization, urbanization, population growth lead to traffic congestion, which can be particularly seen on many urban arterial roads. Congestion reduces utilization of the transportation infrastructure and increases travel time, fuel consumption, air pollution and traffic accidents etc. The existing congestion

measure depends on average travel time, unable to quantify the performance of the transportation system in terms of sustainability. Therefore, there is a need to investigate performance measures to evaluate Sustainable Transportation System. Sustainable transportation attempts to estimate travel time reliability, economic development, environmental and social equity of current and future generations. The objective of this study is to evaluate sustainability of system by considering the delays in travel time and driving cycle patterns. Travel time based performance measures are considered to evaluate performance of sustainability of transportation system. In this study an urban arterial corridor of 4km long on National Highway No. 2 of Delhi Mathura road has been considered and videographic data in morning peak hours was

collected for estimating travel time through license plate matching technique and driving cycle through V box. The benefits in terms of social, economical and environmental terms are studied and computed by providing suitable infrastructure facilities.