A Method for Assessment of Optimum Transport Sustainability Index of an Indian City

Abstract

The estimated Transport Sustainability Index (TSI) of a city is dependent upon the weighted performance of several indicators that can be grouped into environmental, social, economic, or other pillars and signifies the extent to which the city is live-able without creating any adverse future impact. Several researchers have estimated TSI in their own regions using varying indicators, weighting techniques, and aggregation methods for Pillar Sustainability Indices (PSIs). After studying a total of 354 indicators used by different researchers, this study identifies a set of 34 indicators under four pillars of sustainability, following 10-point selection criteria. The identified indicators have been appropriately grouped and attributed to three separate categories of million plus Indian cities. The study proposes to generalize a certain group of indicators for all the cities in a particular category. This study also validates the relevance of proposed set of indicators, their grouping under four pillars and their allocation as per city categories by conducting an Expert Opinion Survey. Studies on estimation of optimum value of TSI at holistic level have not been found readily in literature, though some researchers have considered optimization at indicator level such as network congestion, cost of multimodal travelling, etc. This study proposes a method for arriving at an optimum value of TSI of a typical city, deploying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method for assigning weights to utility value of indicators and fuzzy logic technique for aggregation of PSIs. The optimum value of TSI is a valuable estimate to the policy planners since it helps them to deploy just adequate resources for improving the city’s transport sustainability, minimizing wastage and maximizing savings in resources.