Impact of transport policies on energy use and emissions

There are numerous mid-sized cities in the developing world and most of them lack effective urban management and transportation policies. Though city efforts to reduce global warming potential (GWP) emissions may be low in the global context, effective transportation policies in cities will have obvious results. Taking the Kathmandu Valley as a case study, this paper makes an attempt to analyse the implication of different transportation policies for reducing vehicular emissions and energy consumption. This paper estimates and analyses current and future trends of energy demand and environmental emissions, especially CO₂ and PM₁₀ from passenger road transportation in the Kathmandu Valley. The study is based on the primary data collected at the busiest and longest inner city road. It uses the long range energy alternatives planning system framework to construct future scenarios up to 2025. It analyses future scenario implications mainly dealing with the introduction of trolley buses, promotion of public transportation, discouraging private vehicles and low occupancy public vehicles, increasing vehicular speed, and other transportation policies. The study estimated that the 637 million passenger-kilometres traveled in the study route during 2004 resulted in 34·8 million kg of CO₂ emissions. The travel demand is estimated to multiply by 7·8 with a corresponding twelve-fold increase in CO₂ emissions and a ten-fold increase in total suspended particles (TSP) emissions in the study route from 2004 to 2024 under a non-intervention scenario. This scenario analysis suggests that discouraging private vehicles, thereby promoting mass transportation operated by electricity, can reduce CO₂ by 43·7% and TSP by 43·8% compared with a scenario of non-intervention. In addition to transportation policies, effective land-use planning and encouragement of nonmotorised transport can have more positive impacts. Since Nepal is the Himalayan Kingdom, having many glaciers and snow-fed rivers, it is in great risk of global warming. Therefore change should begin immediately.