– Over the last decade technological advancements of the car have gone rapidly. Emissions and environmental impacts have been significantly reduced. Even so that the Government of India Ministry of Transport wanted to check if it is still valid to prioritize investments in the transport over the car system motivated by environmental arguments. A study has been performed comparing the environmental impacts of car use and transport in urban areas. Next to the current situation technological and policy advancements have been considered in considering future scenarios for 2047. As part of the urban transport the environmental impacts of buses, trains and trams/metro have been considered. Next to emissions, energy use, noise nuisance, waste materials and use of scare space have been considered (MILOV model). The study shows that notwithstanding the technological improvements by the automobile industries the urban environmental impact of the transport modes is still less than that of cars. Especially rail systems seem very environmentally efficient. Nevertheless, serious attention needs to be paid on the emissions of SO2 and Nox by the public transport. Policies like privatizing transport and reductions of subsidies are estimated to work in favor of the environmental impact of transport although there might be a slower penetration of the market of cleaner but more expensive technologies. This only stresses the need of further internalize external costs for all modes.
Sharma et al. (Thu,) studied this question.