| dc.description.abstract | The transportation system is one of the main pillars impacting Quality of Life (QOL) as it fulfills people's basic needs by providing access to daily activities. Rapid urbanization, with more people migrating to urban areas and economic growth, led to a remarkable increase in the motorized vehicle population. Consequently, more dependence on motorized vehicles has resulted in longer trip lengths, increased travel time, traffic congestion, vehicular emissions, noise pollution, and human health impacts, degrading citizens' QOL. To tackle these adverse impacts, planners and decision-makers propose several sustainable transportation measures under planning, regulatory, economic, and technological instruments. However, in many cases, these measures fail in the Indian context due to the absence of an impact assessment framework. Also, such interventions can succeed only if people associate positive QOL outcomes. Thus, public participation and periodic evaluation are necessary to implement sustainable transportation measures successfully. Hence, this thesis aims to develop multi-dimensional integrated frameworks to assess the impacts of sustainable transportation interventions at the local and network levels.
The thesis focuses on the impact assessment of pedestrianization strategy at a local level. Pedestrianization of urban streets, i.e., closing the road for motorized traffic, is encouraged as an effective measure to improve the liveability of urban centers. The pedestrianization scheme was implemented as a testbed in an urban street in Bengaluru, India. The strategy was enforced on all weekends from November 2020 to February 2021. This research uses the subjective and objective data collected during the testbed implementation period. As a first step, three research questions are studied using statistical techniques: (i)visitors’ and shop owners’ attitudes towards the pedestrianization project, (ii)changes in satisfaction levels with street characteristics and travel mode used to reach the street before and after pedestrianization, and (iii) acceptability of the pedestrianization scheme. Second, using quantitative and qualitative approaches, the Pedestrian Level of Service (PLOS) evaluation criteria are developed to assess the service quality of pedestrianized urban streets. Pedestrian walking speed, flow, and space are used to determine the service quality of the street quantitatively. The ordered response model (ORM) is developed to understand the relationship between perceived LOS score and latent variables such as comfort, maintenance, physical and micro-environment, basic facilities, connectivity, safety, and security, which affect the service quality of the street. Then, the proposed qualitative PLOS evaluation criteria are used to assess the estimated PLOS score. Third, pedestrians' exposure to fine particles is measured using Personal Air Quality Monitoring Sensors. The research delivers a comparative analysis appraising pedestrians' exposure to fine particles with & without motorized traffic. Fourth, a unified framework is proposed that combines subjective and objective indicators to assess the QOL outcome of the pedestrianization strategy. The association between perceived QOL and latent factors such as walkability, vitality, connectivity, security, and socio-demographic characteristics is analyzed using the ORM to estimate the subjective QOL indicator. The objective variables including pollution, mobility, and cleanliness, are used to determine the Objective QOL indicator. Then, the subjective and objective QOL indicators are linearly aggregated to formulate a composite Local QOL index, which is then evaluated using the proposed criteria to understand pedestrianization's impact on QOL. Thus, the proposed composite Local QOL index classification can serve as a unique tool to assess the outcomes of pedestrianization measures and support decision-makers in effectively enforcing the scheme.
Fifth, a multi-dimensional integrated novel Transportation QOL Index (TQOLI) framework is developed to evaluate sustainable transport interventions at the network level. Eighteen performance indicators are defined under four QOL dimensions: mobility, environmental, health, & accessibility. The weights of each indicator and dimension are defined using a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making approach, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process. Then, TQOLI evaluation criteria are proposed to critique the influence of sustainable transport interventions on QOL at a network level. The framework is used to assess eight scenarios, which are (1) the operation of the proposed metro network, (2) the implementation of the bus priority corridors and improved non-motorized transport infrastructure, and the assumption of all cars and buses running on electricity with different energy mix is defined in other scenarios. Further, the change in TQOLI is assessed for Business-As-Usual and eight sustainable transport scenarios. Thus, the proposed framework would help transport planners and decision-makers to plan effectively while considering the impacts on QOL. | en_US |
