Impact Analysis of Modal Shift on Transport Ecological Footprint in Bengaluru

Rapid urbanization and economic growth in Bengaluru city has resulted in highly congested road networks and hence nicknamed the “Choked City of India”. Improving the existing Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) is a sustainable solution to combat today’s rise in traffic congestion. Transport ecological footprint (TEF) is a tool that determines the impact of the urban infrastructure and transport modes on the environment. This study aims to understand the ecological footprint, that is, physical and energy footprints contributed by the transportation sector throughout the Bangalore Urban District (BUD). The analysis of data shows that the study area with a population of 1.36 million generates about a 1.63 million work/educational trips per day having a prime modal split of 30% for buses, 10% for 4-wheelers (4W), 22% for 2-wheelers (2W), 3% by auto rickshaw, 28% by foot 5% by bicycle and other 2% by train. The physical footprint is estimated to be approximately 7408.8 ha and the energy footprint of all four taluks comprising BUD is 1.095E + 05 ha. Therefore, it is estimated that 9 earths are required to sequester the emissions from transport. In view to reduce emissions, a scenario is proposed with a stated preference survey as Bus Transit, with urban and socio-economic attributes. A binary logit model developed using IBM SPSS software estimates that there is a 95% shift from 2W, 86.35% from auto, and 23% from 4W to bus transport. Thereby reducing the emissions rate by 44% and going down to 4earths to sequester the emissions from transport. The same scenario is forecasted for 2030 and 2050 and visualized spatially using QGIS software.