Measurement and mapping of the impact of modal shift towards BRT in Ahmedabad

Abstract:

With the current pace of social and economic development of cities in rapidly developing
countries such as India and the resulting growth of the urban population, sustainable
urban transport has become a major concern. The growing concern for sustainable
transport is more and more becoming the domain of land use – transport planners who
study the linkages between characteristics of urban form, transport systems, such as
BRT, and people’s travel behaviour in terms of trip characteristics and mode choice,
hence energy use and emissions. Geo-information is increasingly used in the fields of
urban planning, transport and environmental planning to make decision making
processes more transparent, simpler and accurate. This contribution to BAQ 2008
discusses applications of geo-information science for the study of urban form and
transport impacts in the city of Ahmedabad, India. In this paper, one example on the use
of geo-information science approaches to estimating the likely modal shift towards a
proposed BRT system in the city of Ahmedabad, India, is presented. The impact of this
modal shift on the Transport Ecological Footprint (TEF) indicator in the city is accordingly
analyzed and mapped.

Keywords: Transport Ecological Footprint, BRT, Ahmedabad, Geo-information, Impacts.