Vehicle emission reduction

Vehicle emissions are increasingly becoming the prime cause for atmospheric pollution in the Indian Megacity, Hyderabad. Road transport contributes extensively to the vehicle emissions in the form of traffic congestion. At the policy level, the city adopts two different approaches to address the problem of traffic induced vehicle emissions: a technical and a non-technical supply approach. The technical approach includes the implementation of emission control measures whereas the non-technical supply approach includes mainly the improvement of road infrastructure. Both these approaches focus on roads and vehicles and neglect the behavioural aspect of commuters. As a consequence, traffic congestion occurs and aggravates the vehicle emissions. Thereby, the research develops a comprehensive integrated framework that analyse the influence of commuter behaviour on traffic induced vehicle emissions through the assessment-abatement approach. The empirical evidence from the estimation approach highlights the behavioural implications of commuters causing the disproportionate increase of private vehicles. Game theory perspectives on urban traffic flow model identify the behavioural implication as the result of the coordination problem among commuters with regard to their choice on travel mode. This further emphasizes the importance of transport institutions such as demand based traffic measures to minimize this coordination problem. A mode choice model has been developed as a framed field experiment to explore the effectiveness of the three different types travel demand management measures (demand-push, demand-pull and persuasive) in minimising the coordination problem among commuters. In addition, from the questionnaire data, the commuter acceptance of traffic measures in Hyderabad is analysed through psychological attitudes theory. At the end, it is recommended that the coordination problem among commuters could be minimised if the different types of demand measures are implemented in combinations and the acceptance of those measures could be increased if the commuters are well aware of those measures. In this way, the traffic induced vehicle emissions could be addressed in Hyderabad.