Sustainability impact assessment of transportation policies - A case study for Bangalore city

The first part of the current study proposes a model for assessing the impact of various transportation policies and projects based on the variation in three pillars of sustainability - environmental, economic and social. The methodology consists of determination of different indicators of sustainability pillars and thus the Composite Sustainability Index (CSI) before and after introduction of a transportation policy. Indicators include air pollution indicators, natural resource consumption indicators, health indicators, accessibility indicators, mobility indicators, commute indicators, and cost indicators. CSI is obtained by summing all these indicators after weighing them using an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The indicator value under a transportation policy scenario is obtained using the mode shift found using a mode choice model incorporated with the policy variable. The second part consists of a case study for the city of Bangalore where the sustainability impact due to introduction of congestion pricing in the CBD, during peak hour, is tested. A choice model developed from Revealed Preference data (RP) is used in the study. The choice model estimated a reduction of 14.11% and 2.4% respectively in the total trip distance travelled by car and bike trips after introduction of congestion charging. There was also an increase of 1.7% in CSI because of congestion pricing. (C) 2014 World Conference on Transport Research Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.